Tributes for organ donor campaigner after death aged 20
A “COURAGEOUS and inspirational” young woman who helped raise awareness for organ donation has lost her fight for life.
Lucia Quinney-mee from Ballycastle died at the weekend months after receiving the fourth liver transplant of her young life.
The 20-year-old received the British Empire Medal for her work, which included setting up the Live Loudly, Donate Proudly campaign.
She is survived by her parents Rachel and David and sister Alice.
Lucia received her first liver transplant in 2007 and set up the campaign while waiting for her third in 2015.
She carried the Olympic torch in 2012, competed as a swimmer in the 2016 Transplant Games, and received the BEM the following year.
In her last post on the campaign website in March Lucia wrote she was still in intensive care 10 weeks after her fourth transplant.
“This has been a very different recovery though, two-and-a-half months after the transplant and I’m still in ICU.
“There’s a long long way to go,” she wrote.
“The most important thing to say is thank you. Thank you once again to a perfect stranger who has saved my life, I will always be grateful for you.
“And to myself, keep going, because even though I don’t always feel it, I am recovering and I need to get better — I have a lot more living to do!”
Paul Mcclean, principal of Cross and Passion College, where Lucia was a student, said in a video tribute posted by Q Radio: “She was humble, she was honest, she was lovable, equally at home having tea with the Queen and subsequently receiving a British Empire Medal, as she was being the last person in evening study in our school doing cleaning up.”
He added: “Lucia was an inspirational young woman who kind of laughed in the face of challenges.
“Lucia was so grateful for the life she had been given by her organ donors and their families.
“She made it her mission in life to give back to them, to live her own life to the fullest and she embodied that by funding and promoting her own campaign.”
Donal Cunningham, a colleague of Lucia’s father at the Ballycastle Church Action Group, described her as a “very positive, courageous and inspirational young person”.
The SDLP councillor, remembering the launch of her campaign, said she spoke of how the gift of an organ donation is a “gift of life that helps so many other people”. Mr Cunningham told Mcauley Multimedia that the community was in shock after hearing of Lucia’s death, though it was known for some time that the fourth transplant did not go as well as was hoped, but the loss of a person “so positive and courageous has hit us all... such a lovely, bright, positive person”.
Ballycastle Sinn Fein councillor Cara Mcshane said: “Ballycastle, Rathlin Island and the wider north Antrim community have been left heartbroken over the news of Lucia’s passing at the weekend and just days before her 21st birthday.
“Lucia left a huge mark on everyone she met. A positive, inspirational and intelligent young person — she shifted mindsets. Lucia was a remarkable person who achieved so much in such a short life.”