A brave schoolgirl told her parents she wanted to be an organ donor to save lives if she died – just weeks before she was killed in a horror road accident.
Generous Georgia Goble, 11, saw a television advert appealing for donors and immediately said: ”I’d do that. If anything ever happens to me, mum, I’d like to donate my organs”.
Georgia told mum Kerry, 43, that because they would accept an organ to save her life ”I think you should be prepared to do the same thing back”.
Tragically just four weeks later Georgia was killed in a car crash after visiting relatives with her dad Mickey, 45, and brother Charlie, nine.
Her parents agreed to her wish and the day after the tragedy three of her heart valves were given to save three sick babies and Georgia’s corneas donated to help people with eye problems.
Kerry, of Plymouth, Devon, said: ”We were watching TV when the advert for donors came on. Georgia said after ‘I’d do that’.
”I questioned her about it but she said, ‘you’d take an organ for me and Charlie if something happened to us so I think you should be prepared to do the same thing back’.
”I cuddled her and told her not to talk about things like that and that was nothing like that was going to happen – four weeks later it did.
”It has given me some piece of mind that some families out there will be spared what we’ve gone through.
”We would have liked even more of her organs to have gone on to help others.”
Georgia was killed on Easter Saturday on the A38 between Kennford and Chudleigh Knighton in Devon.
She had been visiting family with her dad and brother when their silver BMW saloon left the road and careered into trees.
Charlie was able to scramble from the wreckage but Mickey and Georgia had to be cut free by firefighters and she died of her injuries in hospital.
An Organ Donor Harvest Team (ODHT) later sent one heart valve to the Bristol Children’s Hospital and two to Great Ormond St Hospital.
Mickey said: ”How many times have we sat in front of the television, cuddling our children and loved ones, watching X Factor or another mind-numbing episode of Hannah Montana?
”Then the programme breaks for the advertisements and then suddenly the image of a child slowly getting more unwell and desperately in need of an organ transplant of some kind of another.
”’But when her mother returned with the drinks and snacks, this brave little girl had the courage to say, ”If anything ever happens to me, mum, I’d like to donate my organs”.
”It can never replace the feeling of Georgia’s tiny hand in mine or the future joys of watching your child growing and maturing into an adult.
”But we are aware now that three sets of parents of sick children are going to be spared the sadness of watching their child pass away.
”It was only a few weeks after the accident that I realised that I was not an organ donor myself. I have since registered my willingness to be a donor at the NHS website.
”Being an organ donor will not stop your sadness and misery if a terrible thing happens, but it may ease the suffering and heartache of others.”
Kerry added: ”Georgia wasn’t only pretty on the outside, she was pretty on the inside too. She was very sure about what she said and had always spoken confidently from a young age.
”You could have an adult conversation with her, and this was her decision and wishes.”
