A mother has had the chance to hold her late daughter's hand again after meeting the woman who received it in a successful transplant.
Heartwarming Reunion on This Morning
Jackie Kirwan, from Liverpool, lost her daughter Georgie Peterson, who died at the age of 33 in August last year, following a long-term serious illness that caused debilitating seizures. Georgie had been on the donation registry since she was 17. When she died, Jackie agreed to donate her limbs.
Georgie's left hand was donated to Kim Smith, 64, who lost all her limbs after contracting a UTI and then suffering from sepsis while on holiday in Alicante, Spain, in 2017. She was later put on a UK waiting list for a double hand transplant and received a new, working left hand last year.
In a heart-warming moment, Jackie and Kim appeared on Friday's episode of This Morning alongside hosts Dermot O'Leary and Josie Gibson as they opened up about their special reunion. The two women first met earlier this year after Kim wrote to her donor's family.
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.'
She 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.'
Emotional Moment
Josie asked: 'How did you feel, Jackie? Did it feel strange at first, or were you up for the meeting?' Jackie admitted: 'It was weird, really, because when Kim wrote I was like, oh, can I hold Georgie's hand? And then I was like, no, don't write back; that's the wrong reason.'
Kim jumped in: 'But I was thinking the same.' Jackie continued: 'She was thinking the same thing. She was thinking she'd be able to hold her daughter's hand, it was great.'
In an emotional moment, Kim said, '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 so that, it's just weird that I automatically...'
Josie asked: 'Is it comforting, then? Is it really comfortable?' Jackie said, 'Yeah, it's really nice.'
This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV1 and ITVX.
