The Story of a Heart

by Fran Withrow 03.2025

It is 2016. Paul and Emma Johnson are at Salem Hospital in Britain with their eight-year old son, Max. A virus has attacked his heart, leaving him with dilated cardiomyopathy. This means the chambers of his heart have enlarged and are losing their ability to contract. Max’s heart becomes increasingly diseased, until eventually he is placed in the sickest children’s ward and put on the heart transplant list.

It is 2017. Nine-year old Keira Ball, her mother, and her younger brother are on their way to the beach near their home in Devon, England.

They never make it. A car crash leaves Keira’s mother and brother severely injured, and Keira is not breathing at all. A junior doctor just happens to be at the site and administers CPR to Keira while they wait for the ambulance. Keira’s father and two older sisters rush to Keira’s side at the hospital, but Keira is eventually declared brain dead.

You can imagine where this is going. Keira’s accident occurs after Max and his family have been waiting for a new heart for an agonizing eight months. Keira’s heart arrives just in time: Max is near death and almost too ill for a transplant.

“The Story of a Heart” is the remarkable journey of how Keira’s heart becomes Max’s, and despite the subject matter, it is a tale of incredible hope and optimism.

Dr. Rachel Clarke has painstakingly researched this remarkable story, interweaving the heartrending experience of these two families with an in-depth history of the scientists and doctors who pioneered the process of organ transplantation. Each one of these doctors, nurses, and researchers paved the way for more refined surgeries and better outcomes, culminating in Keira’s priceless gift of life to Max.

It all builds carefully up to the moment of transplantation, when the staff pauses in silence to thank Keira and her family for the gifts she is giving. (These gifts include her other organs as well, which will go to other recipients.) And once the heart transplant is complete, it is the epitome of compassion that the hospital staff returns Keira to her family, clean and clothed in a party dress picked out by her generous, loving father. And Max, who at one point considered suicide at the tender age of nine, returns to his family with a new lease on life.

An added bonus to the story is that Max’s family goes on to help change Great Britain’s laws so that people have to opt OUT to be an organ donor rather than opt IN. What a sensible idea.

The remarkable history of organ transplantation, and how this medical marvel allowed one little girl’s gift to transform the life of another child, is incredibly readable. Even though I knew the outcome from the beginning, I was spellbound by this fascinating and powerful journey. Each chapter leads flawlessly into the next, resulting in a book which is full of as much heart as Keira’s, now beating beautifully inside Max’s chest.