A mother has experienced the profound moment of holding her late daughter's hand once more after meeting the recipient of her hand transplant. Jackie Kirwan, from Liverpool, tragically lost her daughter Georgie Peterson, who died aged 33, last August, following a prolonged serious illness that caused severe seizures.
The young woman had been registered as a donor since she was 17. Upon her death, her mother consented to the donation of her limbs. Georgie's left hand was given to Kim Smith, 64, who had lost all her limbs after developing a UTI, which led to sepsis while holidaying in Alicante, Spain, in 2017.
Kim subsequently joined a UK waiting list for a double hand transplant and received a functioning left hand last year. In a touching moment, Jackie and Kim featured on Friday's episode of This Morning with presenters Dermot O'Leary and Josie Gibson, discussing their emotional reunion.
The pair first connected earlier this year after Kim sent a letter to her donor's relatives. Kim explained: 'I wrote a letter to say thank you, and at the bottom of my letter, I actually put, if you'd like to meet, I would like to meet. Then Jackie wrote back to me, and she said she'd love to meet me when I was ready.'
Kim continued: 'So I just phoned the nurse in Leeds and said to her, My donor and my family want to meet, can you sort it? So they have to speak to the blood transplant people, and then they kind of liaise together, and then they arrange it, and we met in Liverpool at the end of March.'
During the interview, Jackie admitted it felt 'weird' at first but said holding Kim's hand was 'really nice'. Kim told her: 'She can anytime she likes.' Jackie replied: 'It's Georgie's hand. It's weird, whenever I hold it, I also massively stroke her hand. Because, obviously, Georgie was 33, but when she had a seizure, if she panicked, I used to hold her hand and say, you're ok mate, you're okay.'
