A little girl’s final gift: 6-year-old’s heart saves Israeli boy

The heart of 6½-year-old Saba Badir from Kafr Qasim has given a second chance at life to 3½-year-old Rafael from Jerusalem, ending the young boy’s desperate nine-month wait for a transplant after years of battling a severe congenital heart defect.

Rafael had spent months at Schneider Children’s Medical Center connected to a Berlin Heart life-support device after his own heart failed and was just two hours away from flying to the United States for an emergency transplant when doctors received the call they had been praying for: a matching heart had become available in Israel. The life-saving transplant was performed at Schneider by a specialized pediatric cardiac surgery team.

That heart belonged to Saba, who suffered a catastrophic brain hemorrhage during a family vacation in Eilat and was declared brain dead at Soroka Medical Center. Her parents immediately agreed to donate her organs. “What am I going to do with her heart?” her grieving father said. “Let it save another child.”

The transplant was a success, giving Rafael a new beginning after years of surgeries, hospitalizations, and uncertainty. Looking at photographs of the little boy now living with his daughter’s heart, Saba’s father said through tears: “My daughter’s heart is alive. It is a gift from God.”