Story By: Marija Stojkoska, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency:  Newsflash

Six people – including a terminally ill baby – have been given a new start in life after this woman’s heart and organs were donated to them following her tragic death in a car crash over the weekend.

Giulia Ragini, 26, was driving with her boyfriend along route SS113 in the commune of San Filippo del Mela in the Italian island of Sicily on Saturday when she was killed in an accident.

The boyfriend, identified only by his first name Giovanni, was driving the Smart car when it crashed into a Fiat Panda driven by a 79-year-old woman.

A preliminary police investigation suggested that the old woman’s car had crossed onto the wrong side of the road.

The young woman, who worked in a boutique in Milazzo, was taken to hospital by helicopter in a critical condition where she remained on life support.

Despite her family’s prayers for a miracle, the young woman’s condition worsened and she passed away.

However, her distraught family still thought of others, and her mother signed the paperwork for her organs to be donated.

According to local media, the traffic victim’s lungs were sent to a patient in Milan and her liver was divided among two patients, with one part given to a one-month-old newborn baby described as having “severe pathologies” whose life was instantly saved after the transplant.

Her heart was sent to Naples, and her two kidneys remained in her home region of Sicily, donated to patients in Catatonia and Palermo.

The Health Director responsible for transplants in the region, Dr Antonino Levita, praised her family for their kind gesture in a time of deep sorrow.

He said: “The successful procedure has helped others, but also takes on a deeper meaning for us. It is a gesture of love towards others especially at this particular time when the world is tackling COVID-19.”

He added: “I hope that this great gesture of altruism, on which the survival of at least six other patients depended, some in desperate situations, will also inspire a sense of recovery and rebirth in others.

“We hope it will be an example for others to follow now more than ever.”

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