Family of boy who died of heart attack donate organs

The family of a 6-year-old boy who died of a heart attack on Friday are donating his organs, state-run broadcaster ERT reported. 

A team of doctors from Italy and other parts of Greece will travel on Saturday afternoon to the University Hospital of Patras to receive the organs. ERT reported that the liver, heart will be given to recipients in Italy, while the corneas and kidneys will be given to patients in Greece.

“We want our child’s death to help save the lives of other children,” the boy’s parents were quoted by the Peloponnisos news website as saying.

The boy, who was from the town of Grevena in northern Greece, suffered a heart attack while at home on the afternoon of January 3rd and had to be transferred all the way to a hospital in Patras, southern Greece, because there were no beds available in ICUs in Thessaloniki.

Doctors announced Friday that despite their efforts, the child was brain dead.