The family of Lucy Dee, who was murdered last month alongside two of her daughters by Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank, met Tuesday with the heart transplant patient who received her heart after her organs were donated.
Dee, 48, and her daughters Maia Dee, 20, and Rina Dee, 15, were shot dead while driving through the northern Jordan Valley on April 7. The daughters were declared dead at the scene, while Lucy was rushed to hospital in critical condition but died days later.
Dee’s organs were transplanted before burial, saving the lives of five people.
Who received Lucy Dee's heart?
Lital Valenci, a 51-year-old mother of two, has suffered from severe heart failure for five years. She met with Dee's surviving family members for the first time on Tuesday after a successful transplant surgery at Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikvah, in which she received Dee's heart.
Dee's daughters Keren, 19, and Tali, 17, heard their mother’s heartbeat in Valenci's chest while their father Rabbi Leo Dee and brother Yehuda, 14, stood by their side.
שמעו את פעימות הלב של אימן: המפגש המרגש בין משפחת די למושתלי האיברים של לוסי שנרצחה בפיגוע בבקעה@daniel_elazar pic.twitter.com/WWm3kKIjyo
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) May 2, 2023
Valenci expressed condolences and gratitude to the family.
“I was so moved when I learned who I was receiving a heart from as I had read about Lucy Dee and what an incredible woman she was with an exemplary family.”
Lital Valenci
“I was so moved when I learned who I was receiving a heart from as I had read about Lucy Dee and what an incredible woman she was with an exemplary family,” she said.
Keren said that listening to her mother’s heartbeat made her feel like they were together.
"It was moving meeting Lital and all the recipients, we have lost so much but are comforted that so many families were saved from similar pain,” she said.
“Nobody can understand what it is like losing a mother and two sisters at once and to hear my mother’s heartbeat was comforting," Tali added
Prof. Dan Aravot, who performed the heart transplant and has been overseeing Valenci’s recovery, remarked on the moving meeting.
“There was not a dry eye in the room as Keren and Tali heard their mother’s heartbeat," he said. “We often talk about the physical recovery after a transplant but there is an emotional component that comes with it, and it was very important to Lital to meet the Dee family and share her condolences with them and how appreciative she is to have the gift of life and watch her children grow up because of Lucy Dee.”
Added Prof. Yaron Barac, Beilinson’s director of heart and lung transplants and mechanical support programs added: “In most transplant cases, we don’t know the donor and their family, we have no faces or life stories to relate to, but in this case, the day before the surgery, we – like all Israelis, heard the plea from Lucy’s daughters for all of Israel and the Jewish people to pray for their mother.
"When we got the news of the donation the following day, it was a hard moment for us all as we felt as though we knew Lucy, because we were all hoping for her to recover. As we transplanted her heart into Lital, we felt both the sadness of the moment and also how Lucy was giving Lital a chance at life and in some way a sense of victory and the continuation of life."
Other lives saved by Lucy Dee's organ donations
The British-Israeli family also met Mordechi Elkabetz, 51, who received one of Lucy's kidneys and Daniel Geresh, 25, who received her liver. Elkabatz had been waiting for seven years for a kidney transplant. The fourth recipient, Ahmed Suliman, 38, also received one of her kidneys but was not able to attend the meeting. Instead, she sent a plaque with verses from the Bible as a tribute to Lucy Dee.
Dee's corneas will be transplanted in the future.