Dianne Connor was busy preparing for another family Christmas when the phone call came that would shatter her world.
It was a typically hot Queensland morning in mid-December 1992.
Her 20-year-old son, Nathan – a student doctor – had just been killed in a car accident.
As she reeled from the news and rushed to the Brisbane hospital where he lay, she was about to make a fateful decision that would have reverberations for years to come.
Wracked with grief, but determined to honour Nathan’s last wishes, she consented to donate his organs to medicine so that others might live.
Across town, another family, the Donovans were reeling from the diagnosis their father, Terry had just received: he had six months to live unless he was given a new heart.
The story of how Nathan’s heart breathed new life into the Donovan family – and how Terry and Dianne found one another against all odds (and in complete breach of normal organ donor protocol) – makes for compelling, uplifting reading in this month’s issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly – out now.
It’s a Christmas story guaranteed to lift your spirits.
Give Life This Christmas Australia has one of the lowest rates of organ donation in the world.
In order to donate life-saving organs, all Australian citizens need to ‘opt-in’ – actively agreeing to the procedure.
To give the gift of life this Christmas, visit Donate Life and add your name and details to the The Australian Organ Donor Register.
The Donor Register ensures a person’s donation decision can be verified 24 hours a day, seven days a week by authorised personnel anywhere in Australia.
