Thanks for the heart which saved me
A HEART transplant survivor has met the family of the girl who saved his life.
Max Johnson, 10, was desperate to say thank you in person.
Max spent more than eight months on the Children’s Heart Unit at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle.
His enlarged heart, caused by cardiomyopathy, meant only a transplant could save him.
But when a donor heart was finally found in August last year it meant bad news for another family.
Keira Ball was just nine when she was killed in a car crash near her home in Devon.
Her family were able to meet the Johnsons and see the human impact of her donation. Max said: “They saved my life so it’s hard to just say thank you. I feel like that’s not enough.”
It was an emotional meeting as the two families came together, with Max’s mum and dad Emma and Paul able to express their gratitude to the Balls.
Paul told them: “Keira is part of our family now, and always will be. She will be remembered by our family for ever. “She will live on, and not just for us. Thank you feels wholly inadequate somehow. “To be able to see you and talk to you means so much. It is important for you to see what a difference you made to all our lives. “It will never, ever come close to replacing what you have lost. But if it gives you comfort then for me, it is the least we can do.”
Max, who is from Winsford in Cheshire, helped to front the Daily Mirror’s Change the Law campaign last year.
Now England and Wales will adopt an ‘opt-out’ policy whereby everyone is presumed to be a donor.
Experts believe this could save up to 500 lives a year across the UK.
Keira’s mum Loanna and brother Bradley, eight, were also seriously injured in the crash. After three days, doctors finally told her dad Joe there was nothing more they could do for Keira and she passed away. Inspired by his daughter’s desire to help others, he took the decision for her to become an organ donor and she saved four lives. Now Joe, Loanna and Bradley as well as Keira’s two sisters Keely, 13, and Katelyn, 12, were able to listen to her heart beat inside Max. Joe said: “It was bizarre coming through that door and seeing the faces of Max and his family for the first time. “Before we had only seen him in your paper, a picture on a page. “Now I know what the donation has done for him, it brings it all home. It feels like such a big part of Keira is in Max now. He is a legend.” An inquest is yet to be held into the cause of Keira’s accident.
It will never, ever come close to replacing what you have lost. But if it gives you comfort then for me, it is the least we can do