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“I wanted some good to come from my tragedy.”

They were side by side on the sofa: a mother who had lost a son and a boy who was alive because of him. She reached out and put her hand flat on the young man's chest, to feel the pulse of her lost boy beating away inside. “I can feel it beating so strongly,” said this quiet, reserved woman in her fifties, only just holding back her emotions. “I am very grateful for that.”

This extraordinary moment provides the climax for The Boy Who Gave His Heart Away, a five-part series on Radio 4 telling the story of two teenage lads who fell ill at the same time, a couple of hundred miles apart. One died and his organs were taken to help others. The other survived because of him. This is a real-life medical cliffhanger, told in the voices of those who were involved, and because of that we will not name either of the boys here.

One was 15 when he suddenly fell ill. The other was 16. That was in 2003, but the ripples of what happened that summer continue to be felt, in ways that are sad but also inspirational. One was a promising young Scottish footballer of 15, whose heart was suddenly attacked by a virus. “He was yellow, such a terrible colour and he was so confused,” remembers his mother, who was so frustrated by the family doctor’s refusal to take it seriously that she drove her son to the hospital where she worked and parked across the ambulance bay, leaning on the horn until one of her colleagues came out to see what was wrong. The other boy was a bubbly 16-year-old in Lincolnshire, struck down by a brain haemorrhage. He stumbled into his mother’s bedroom in the middle of the night and collapsed face down on the bed. The doctors at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham said there was nothing that could be done. Within moments of giving that terrible news, they were asking for his organs. “I didn’t have to think about it,” says his mother. “I wanted some good to come from my tragedy.”

His heart was rushed through the night by road and air to Newcastle, in a desperate race against time: there were 160 miles to go and only four hours to complete the transplant before the heart became unusable. The young teenage footballer was waiting, having been brought down from Scotland in a coma. The supply of blood to his body had slowed down and his other organs were failing. His only hope was a transplant - and after six anxious days of waiting, this heart was perfect for him. The right age, the right weight, the right blood type. His life was saved. Thirteen years later, he still has struggles with his health but is immensely grateful for the extra time.

"I didn’t have to think about it, I wanted some good to come from my tragedy."

It’s very rare for the people who get organs to come face to face with the families of those who donate, but this was an exception. By coincidence, the bereaved mother happened to meet a man who had received her son’s liver when he was close to death and had survived to see his children grow up.She went on television to talk about it, representing her charity, the Donor Family Network. The grandmother of the boy who got the heart happened to be watching and felt a connection. Her family got in touch directly, which is almost unheard of, and they discovered it was true.

When the mother and the boy (who was now a man) first met, he took her hand and put it on his chest. “That was a very special moment,” she says. So when it came to record The Boy Who Gave His Heart Away, I asked them if they would recreate that moment. I was hesitant about it, wondering whether to dare. What followed was deeply moving. We had been talking and recording at a hotel in Renfrewshire for three days and everyone was tired. They looked at each other nervously, unsure how to do this or whether to do it at all. “Yeah, it’s a very special thing, for him to feel it’s okay for me to do that is really special to me,” she said, knowing the emotions would spill out. She shifted on the sofa anyway, and he took her hand, guiding it to his chest. He held it there. She felt the heart beat under her palm. “For me to feel that is actually my son’s heart, that he was born with, and it’s still beating … it’s just incredible.” For a moment there was a really strong and obvious connection between them. Tears pricked my eyes. Then they both laughed, and shuffled apart. Later, I noticed she had started calling it his heart, using his name and not that of her son, the boy she still missed every day. The boy who saved lives after his death. The boy who gave his heart away.