The man who set himself on fire in protest outside Donald Trump’s criminal trial has donated his kidneys to ‘save two people’s lives’ after he died from his burns.
Conspiracy theorist and researcher Maxwell Azzarello, 37, doused himself in fluid and lit his clothes on fire near the Manhattan criminal court last week Friday.
The flames were extinguished by NYPD officers and he was rushed to hospital but died later that day.
Now nonprofit organ donation group LiveOnNY has revealed that Azzarello was a donor and that both of his kidneys were transplanted, allowing him to ‘save two people’s lives on the national waitlist.’
President Leonard Achan said: ‘The 37-year-old man who tragically passed away after succumbing to injuries from self-inflicted burns while across from the Manhattan courthouse on Friday, was a registered organ donor.’
The Florida native was a graduate of Rutgers University, where he received a master’s degree in city and regional planning in 2012.
Friend and neighbour Bob Warren, 62, who lived next door to Azzarello in Saint Augustine, Florida revealed: ‘It was just a few days before he went to New York, we were sitting around in the back there, drinking beers and he was playing his guitar, and we were talking.
‘He had some extreme views, some extreme ideology and he just said, “I think I’m going to have to just go be a martyr.”’
Warren said: ‘He just moved into the apartment next door about three weeks ago, but he’d been coming over to hang out for about six, seven months before that.
‘He was a great guy. We used to chat. I’m a Trump supporter. He thought everyone was involved in some conspiracy so we would just stay away from some subjects. We got along fine.’
According to Warren, Azzarello had looked at the move as a positive change as, though his father, Richard, 71, lives locally, he had been living in a halfway house.
Warren described himself as, ‘completely shocked’ to learn that his friend had followed through on his threat.
He said: ‘I just keep thinking he probably changed his mind four or five seconds after he lit himself up.’
Azzarello pulled a bunch of pamphlets out of his backpack and threw them up in the air before dousing himself with fuel and accelerant at 1.39 pm Friday afternoon.
He died of his injuries shortly before 11 pm that night.
His white Toyota 4Runner truck sits where he left it outside his apartment building. ‘Trump is with Hillary, And they’re about to fascist coup us up,’ is written in permanent marker across the back.
