Th lives of four children and one adult were saved this week when a family from the Modiin area agreed to donate the organs of their 17-year-old son. The teen was diagnosed as having suffered brain death this week.
Four organ transplants were performed in the Shneider medical center. Rani, 11, from the Druze village of Horfesh, received the youth's heart. He is currently in stable condition, and is breathing independently.
Maya, 13, of the Jordan River Valley, received a double lung transplant. She suffered from pulminary hypertension, and doctors say she would have died without a rapid transplant. She is in stable condition as well.
Anastasia, 16, received a liver. Anastasia studies in Odessa, and was flown to Israel because she desperately needed a transplant.
A 16-year-old young man who has not been identified was given a kidney. A 31-year-old man was given the second kidney and pancreas.
The 17-year-old's parents explained that when they were first asked about organ donation, they were unsure how to proceed. “It was very important to us that other parents would not experience the deep loss, the terrible pain of bereavement,” they said. But they wondered if they had the right to make the decision in their son's place.
The parents consulted with rabbis, and were told that they could go ahead with the organ donation. They recalled, “We were happy that other parents would be able to hug their loved ones... We made the decision because our precious son was righteous in his life, and righteous in death as well.”