Courage of transplant teen Lucia
BRAVE Lucia Mee is the youngest of almost 800 everyday heroes recognised in the New Year Honours.
Lucia, 18, has campaigned for organ donation after receiving three liver transplants.
Lucia, from Ballycastle, Co Antrim, was eight when she suffered liver failure and was rushed to hospital for a transplant.
The first organ was rejected and the second hit complications.
Yet she founded the Live Loudly Donate Proudly campaign and competed at the British Transplant Games.
Lucia said she was “really shocked” by her
British Empire Medal.
She said: “The fact that I’m here and really able to do this is down to the fact that there are organ donors.”
Around 70% of the 1,123 honours recipients are community workers or volunteers.
Margaret Jamieson, 95, gets a British Empire Medal for 80 years of volunteering in Orkney.
And former rough sleeper David Duke, 37, has been made an MBE after founding Street Soccer Scotland in 2009.
Mentor Efe Ezekiel gets a BEM for helping young people in Walthamstow, East London. She said: “I can’t believe it.”