Heroic man donates part of his own liver to 2-year-old girl with cancer

Joseph Osborn became the hero of 2-year-old Emily Smith. When he learned that the girl had cancer and needed a liver transplant to survive, he gave part of his.

As Fox Now reported, the selfless act took place at UPMC Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. 30-year-old Joseph, who didn’t know Emily’s family, heard her story and considered that he could help.

Dr. Armando Ganoza, a liver transplant surgeon at the hospital, revealed that Emily had gone through five rounds of chemotherapy that had done little-to-nothing to her tumor, so the only chance she had was getting a new liver.

FOREVER GRATEFUL

Heather Smith, Emily’s mother, said she had no words to describe what Joseph had done for her daughter, and that just thinking about it “gives you chills. That was a huge surgery that he undertook for a complete stranger,” added Heather.

JOSEPH’S THOUGHTS

“It was one of those things where it was like the Lord loves her and the Lord values her ... We’re excited about the Lord’s plans for her, and so we knew that the way He kept opening doors that everything was going to be all right and it was going to be good for everybody involved,” said Joseph.

CANCER-FREE

Heather shared more aspects of her daughter’s condition saying that she was getting ready to go home, pointing out that Emily was cancer-free, which is “exciting, too.”

A NORMAL LIFE

Dr. Ganoza finally admitted that Emily is expected to live a perfectly normal life thanks to Joseph's donation of part of his liver. Hopefully, the girl will not have any negative effects after the transplant, like what happened to four people who received organs from the same donor and developed breast cancer.

TRANSPLANT GOING WRONG

Three of them, unfortunately, died of the disease, and the fourth one survived after removing the transplant she got. Dr. Frederike Bemelman, professor of nephrology at the University of Amsterdam, pointed out that it was an “extremely rare case” and that it was the first one encountered in 20 years in the field of transplantation immunology.

One of the aspects that left the experts speechless was that the donor, who was 53 years old, had no known medical conditions, and the malignant cells were unknown when her kidneys, lungs, liver, and heart were harvested.