Last week, as Russian drones and missiles filled the skies over Kyiv, Ukraine, Dr. Borys Todurov raced across the city on an urgent mission: delivering a donor heart to save the life of a seriously ill child. The transplant was her only chance for survival, and Todurov couldn’t wait for the aerial assault to stop before making the ten-mile journey.
Despite fires, explosions, and air defense activity, Todurov and his team transported the heart from the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital to the Heart Institute. He then led the surgical team in performing the transplant while the attack on Kyiv continued. A video captured the moment the new heart began to beat in the patient’s chest, and Todurov reported that her pressure was stable and the heart was functioning well.
The donor was a four-year-old girl who’d been declared brain-dead, and whose mother, a medical worker, had chosen to donate her daughter’s organs. While her heart saved one child, her kidneys went to a 14-year-old boy, and her liver to a 16-year-old girl, both in critical condition. The Ukrainian Transplant Coordination Centre expressed deep gratitude for the selfless final act, saying, “May the little donor rest in peace.”
Source: CNN