Woman hears daughter’s heartbeat in pensioner’s chest in rare meeting

A woman in the US heard her late daughter's heart beating inside the chest of the pensioner who received it.

Amber Morgan, from Indiana, met 68-year-old Tom Johnson four years after he received a heart from Andreona Williams, who was just 20 when she died from asthma complications in 2018.

Watch the emotional meet here:

A donor network arranged the rare meeting at a Chicago hotel, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Morgan listened through a stethoscope pressed to Johnson's chest, in an emotional moment for the pair.

"It's almost like I got to hug my daughter again," Morgan said.

"As a mother, you listen to your child's heartbeat when you carry them, and I don't think you ever ask to hear it again. It's amazing."

FOX 32 Chicago

Johnson wrote to Morgan in 2019, a year after the transplant at Loyola University Medical Centre in Chicago.

He wanted to express his gratitude for the family's decision to donate the heart.

He sent a second letter too, but did not get a response until recently when Morgan said she would like to meet, and the get-together was arranged with just over a week's planning.

"This is just a big blessing for me to meet Amber," Tom told the Chicago Tribune.

"I was praying virtually every night that this would happen. I always referred to my donor, and now I have a name.

"It's just unbelievable beyond words."

Johnson had suffered with a weak heart since childhood. Doctors tried a pacemaker and defibrillator before telling him that a transplant was the best solution, and he was on the waiting list for 18 months before receiving Adreona's heart.

"It opened up a whole new world of possibilities," Johnson said.

"It's just unbelievable. I mean, I can work out in the garden, ride the bike. My sons can't believe how quick I can go."

Morgan felt compelled to meet Johnson after she had a heart attack.

"I read the letter and you hear about it, you know she's in somebody else and helping them, but to actually hear and see the result, it’s amazing," she said.

"She made me so proud throughout her whole life, and she still makes me proud."

Johnson is one of three people whose lives have been saved after Andreona's family decided to donate her organs.

"She's living through him," Morgan said.

"Now she's able do all the things that she couldn't really do for similar reasons as him. She would also run out of breath, but hers was asthma."

Topics: US News, Science

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey