How one organ donor's body saved the life of four people, United Kingdom

Source: Metro UK

An organ donor who died of meningitis has given the gift of life to four seriously ill people.

Jenna Higgins’ liver saved a 13-year-old boy who had just 24 hours to live, while her pancreas and one kidney went to a 25-year-old mother who had diabetes.

The archaeology student’s other kidney went to a 22-year-old man and her lungs helped save a 54-year-old woman who had emphysema.

Miss Higgins, 25, also donated her eyes, heart valves and even her hair, to be made into wigs for burns patients.

Her mother, Betty, said: ‘I am so proud Jenna was able to save and improve so many people’s lives.

‘I feel as if God stepped in and saved the life of the little boy in the nick of time.’

Miss Higgins, of Pennsylvania in the US, died in June while studying in Sheffield.

She had suffered flu-like symptoms and then a seizure before falling into a coma.

Her parents flew to be at her bedside and had to make the heartbreaking decision to turn off her life support system.

Her mother said: ‘It was such a shock. Jenna was loved by everyone. She was such a lively, outgoing girl, so full of fun.

‘When I spoke to the doctor and he told us Jenna was brain-dead, we immediately told him we wanted our daughter to be a transplant candidate.’

Miss Higgins, who had registered to be a donor, would have wanted her parents’ consent because of ‘her kind and generous nature’, added her mother.

Sally Snowden, a Sheffield NHS specialist in organ donation, said thousands of patients were currently waiting for transplants, adding: ‘Of those, three will die every day.

‘Betty and [husband] Charles knew it was something Jenna would have wanted but knowing she was on the Organ Donation Register made their decision easier.’