The family of a young east Jerusalem boy, Abdelhai Salhot, who was killed in a traffic accident, saved three lives Monday by donating their son’s organs.The fortunate recipients were a seven-year-old Arab boy in critical condition from liver cirrhosis, who got Abdelhai’s liver, and an eight-year-old Jewish girl who was on dialysis due to kidney failure and had been waiting for a year for a kidney.The other kidney went to a 55-year-old man who has been on dialysis for five years. It was not given to a child, as there was no other youngster who needed a kidney and was compatible to the donor.The lower-brain-dead donor was at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem, while the transplants were performed at Schneider Children’s Medical Center and the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus in Petah Tikva.
All of the recipients are in stable condition. Schneider has performed over 300 organ transplants – heart, lung, liver and kidneys – in babies, children and teens, with success rates comparable to the best transplant centers abroad.