Abigail Brenda Iles

I didn't know Abigail, but after reading about her i decided to make a page for her.

Here is the story from the Daily Mirror on October 22, 2007:

One day Abigail Iles was a thoughtful, affectionate seven-year-old who brought joy to her doting parents.

The next she was dead, her young life suddenly cut short.

Less than 24 hours after first complaining of a headache while auditioning for a children's choir, Abigail had been killed by a brain haemorrhage.

Advertisement
Her tragic death 10 days ago has left her devastated parents struggling to understand why their beautiful "pink girl" was taken from them.

But even as mum and dad Liz and Ken were trying to cope with losing her, they made the courageous and generous decision to let doctors use her organs.

Today, thanks to their bravery, four people have a new chance at life, as Abigail's heart, liver and both kidneys were donated to three sick children and a woman.

Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mirror to highlight our Be 1 In A Million campaign for a million new donors, Ken, 38, says: "It was the worst 24 hours of our lives.

"We had thought about organ donation for ourselves before but we had never thought about it for Abi.

As parents you never imagine your children might not outlive you.

"I had always wanted to donate my organs but when it came to that point with our daughter, she was still our little girl.

"But we thought that if there was nothing we could do for her, we could at least do something to help someone."

Liz, 41, says: "I'm absolutely devastated and I still can't believe she's gone. I just still think she's at Grandma's at the moment. It's going to take time for reality to hit home.

"The fact her organs have helped others is a small comfort. It's what she would have wanted to do. All kids like to help but Abigail just wanted to help everybody and make sure everybody was all right. She even used to tell her grandma off for crying when her grandpa died."

Liz had taken Abigail, a talented singer, to an audition for the Hartlepool youth choir. Her mum remembers: "She sang beautifully and she got in, which she was really happy about.

"We came out and suddenly she screamed, closed her eyes and said she had a splitting headache. She said she was tired. That was the last thing she said to me.

"I brought her home. She went listless and wasn't responding. I phoned up NHS Direct and they sent an ambulance. When it came they realised something was very wrong because her heart wasn't functioning properly."

Abigail was rushed to University Hospital Hartlepool, where a brain scan revealed a vein in her head had burst. Liz recalls: "She was rushed up to hospital in Newcastle in an ambulance with five policeman clearing the road. By the time Ken got to the hospital, she was all wired up.

"They measured the pressure in her head and in her brain.

The reading said 11 and if it went up to 20 they said they would be worried. It went up to 120.

"Fortunately she was on the medicine and drugs so she didn't know anything about it," Liz continues.

"It was around midnight when the doctors told us that there was nothing more they could do."

Abigail was was formally pronounced dead at 3.50am on the Friday, October 12.

When it was clear she wasn't going to make it, doctors gently approached the couple about using her organs to help save the lives of others who needed them.

But funeral director Ken explains: "We discussed it before it was mentioned to us, when they realised all hope was lost for Abi.

"The decision didn't really take long but still it was really difficult. She was our little girl. It's very difficult to make the decision for someone to do that to her.

"We knew it was the right thing to do. We just needed to get that bit of courage to say yes and our family helped us make that decision."

Because they had decided to donate Abigail's organs, doctors kept her body functioning while they looked for recipients and carried out tests.

Liz adds: "They kept her alive even though she was brain dead.

"We were looking at our little girl breathing, even though she was dead. She was still alive to us, she just looked asleep."

Abigail's heart went to a five-year-old in Newcastle General, her two kidneys went to a five-year-old in London and a six-year-old in Birmingham. Her liver went to a 44-year-old woman.

Ken says: "We don't know which hospital they were staying at but one of them was critical and wouldn't have lasted much longer."

Hundreds attended her funeral last Friday, where a horse-drawn carriage brought Abigail's pink coffin to the church. Schoolchildren lined the pavement to say a final farewell to their classmate.

Ken helped carry the coffin with colleagues from the Cooperative Funeral Service, who all wore pink ties in tribute to his daughter.

Liz wore a pink skirt and followed closely behind clutching a teddy bear. Liz says: "She was not a frilly girl, just a pink girl.

"If she was in her pink play clothes and with her family she was happy.

We didn't want any black at her funeral because it was too morbid.

"Abigail loved going to church with school."

Looking back on the terrible day her daughter fell ill, accounts assistant Liz adds: "It was horrible. The pressure in her head was so immense that her body just shut down."

On her and Ken's decision to donate Abigail's organs, Liz explains: "It's a very, very difficult decision to take and I would fully understand anybody who wouldn't do it.

"What made it so hard at the time was that she hadn't had an operation. Apart from having a drain on her brain, she hadn't had anything done to her body.

"By allowing her organs to be used we had to make the decision to allow her to be operated on and that was very hard. It's what she would have wanted to do. She just always wanted to help people. If anybody was very sad she would give them a cuddle.

"To know that we have helped save these people is quite an overwhelming feeling."

Ken says: "In a way she hasn't died in vain. But it was still a very difficult decision and families should take whatever decision they think is the right one for them."

Abigail's story is the latest the Mirror has highlighted as part of our Be 1 In A Million campaign for a million new donors to sign up to the NHS register over the next 12 months.

Our campaign was launched four months ago after we brought you the story of heart-swap 19-month-old Zoe Chambers, who continues to make great progress at her home in Hull.

Yesterday Maxine Walter of UK Transplant honoured Ken and Liz's generosity.

She said: "I can only pay tribute to their gift. At a terrible time they have thought of other people in need.

"It's a truly amazing gift that they have made in these tragic circumstances."

She added: "People's generosity like this gives hope to thousands of other people who need a transplant and if people are moved by this family's gesture, we would encourage them to think about their own wishes for organ donation.

"Then if they feel it is right for them, they too can sign up to the NHS organ donation register."