Tourist's Tragic Death Brings New Life

JERUSALEM, Israel -- The tragic death last week of a Christian tourist from South Africa, who died from a severe allergic reaction, brought new life to at least four Israelis.

Three days after Lydia Labuschagne, 30, came to Israel on a 10-day tour, she unknowingly ate a dish with a sauce made from sesame to which she was deathly allergic.

Friends dining with her said she immediately took the antidotes she always carried with her before being rushed to the intensive care unit at Jerusalem's Sha'are Zedek Medical Center, where doctors fought desperately to save her life.

Lydia's parents and brother flew in from South Africa to be by her side and local believers joined them in praying for her. After three days, she went home to be with the Lord.

Her family decided she would have wanted to donate her organs to save others and that's exactly what they did.
 
Doctors say her liver saved the life of Miri Avrahami, a 33-year-old mother of three, who would have died without an immediate transplant.

"There would have been nothing left for us to do. She wouldn't have survived," said Prof. Eytan Mor, head of the organ transplant department at Rabin Medical Center.

"Thanks [to] your sister, I'm alive. It's a miracle," Avrahami told her brother, Nick.

"My sister would have really wanted this to happen," he said. "My sister, basically she lived like an angel and she would want to do what Jesus did, that is, to help people and to save lives."

Lydia's lungs were donated to a 40-year-old man with cystic fibrosis.

And her corneas saved the sight of a young man and woman both suffering from a disease that causes blindness by deforming the cornea.

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Times of Israel contributed to this report.