TV documentary inspires family of accident victim

Star: KOTA BARU: Inspired by a Hong Kong documentary on organ donations on satellite TV, a family here decided to allow the organs of their daughter to be harvested for transplants after she was certified brain-dead at 1.38pm on Monday.
Hyperactive and caring Kua Yi Yun, 17, from SMK Chung Hwa, met with an untimely death after falling from her motorcycle along Jalan Baya Bemban here on Sunday at around 4pm.
She had stayed back in school for extra-curricular activities and was on her way home to Kubang Kerian when she somehow plunged head first onto the road. The impact shattered her helmet.
Yi Yun was rushed to Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia (HUSM) and placed under intensive care treatment but she went into a coma.
After a 48-hour vigil at her bedside, the family led by father Kua Eng Hui, 53, mother Lin Siew Kwee and four siblings discussed the next step after Yi Yun was declared clinically dead.
“We spoke about how touched we felt after watching the documentary, so we felt that the way to honour her short life was to help prolong the lives of others,” Kua said.
Doctors harvested Yi Yun’s heart valve, kidneys, corneas, eight bone joints from her hand and legs, and skin in a pre-dawn operation at HUSM yesterday.
At 8am, a mercy flight took off from the Sultan Ismail Petra airport here for the Kuala Lumpur Hospital with the kidneys where transplants on two patients were performed.
Kua, a trader at the Jalan Kebun Sultan hawker centre, said the televised documentary had helped the family understand the significance of donating organs.
According to his brother-in-law who only wanted to be identified as Fong, 33, Yi Yun was an all-rounder in sports and performed above average academically.
“Let me express the family’s feelings. They are sad but have to let her go. They have accepted the fact and the family hope their gift can be emulated by others in the future.”
Fong said the family now wanted privacy to mourn her death and any expression of appreciation by the recipients’ families would probably be done in private.
Yi Yun will be cremated today around 10am at the Pauh Lima Siamese temple in Balai, Bachok, some 60km from Kota Baru.
Schoolmates and teachers have begun paying their last respects and many were touched by the organ donation.
HUSM dean of the school of dental sciences Prof Ab Rani Samsudin praised the family for their honourable gesture.
Tissue bank lecturers Dr Rosden Roskujera Salim and Dr Suzina Sheikh Abdul Hamid assisted a surgical team from Kuala Lumpur Hospital in removing the organs.
Yi Yun’s bones can be transplanted in up to 60 patients.
The 17-year-old girl is the second organ donor from USM Hospital in Kubang Kerian. Nineteen-year-old Teoh Chit Hwa donated his organs and tissues to give 25 people a new lease of life in May.
Dr Lela Yasmin Mansor, chief of transplant coordinator at the national transplant resource centre, said the family of the girl initiated the donation after learning that she was brain dead.
“We are very touched by the family’s noble deed,” she said.
Yi Yun’s heart, lungs and liver were not taken as the organs were no longer suitable for transplant, said Dr Lela.
A six-member team comprising two doctors and four nurses, including transplant coordinators from Hospital Kuala Lumpur, took the last MAS flight from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Baru on Monday night to harvest the organs and tissues.