The woman having days to live is saved thanks to a box imitating the human body

Helen Rawlinson was lying on her hospital bed, a few hours from death, writing farewell letters to her family.

At her side, the fiancée Darryl Flynn was holding her hand, not wanting to lose hope.

Barely 29 years old and waiting for a second liver transplant, the brave Helen seemed to have no chance of living anymore.

Because of her medical history and the fear that her body would reject a new liver, she was well down the list of the healthiest transplant organs available – usually resuscitators.

And she was so poor that she was unlikely to make a donation, even of "inferior quality", after a liver death (CPD) – likely to be damaged by a lack of blood circulation after a death from heart failure or pulmonary.

But almost miraculously, Helen was about to receive the greatest gift of her life.

A liver wrapped in a BOX.

While she was dying, her liver consultant at St James's University Hospital in Leeds decided to make one last move.

Magdy Attia had participated in clinical trials with the American company TransMedics, which had developed a pioneering system, Organ Care System, which mimicked the conditions of the human body, thus keeping a donor's liver healthy and " alive with the blood circulating there.

Attia told Helen about the plight and was surprised to agree to send the box – still under trial in Mbadachusetts – on a 3,500-kilometer trip to Britain. it was possible to find a donor.

Crucially, this also meant that doctors inside the liver could be thoroughly tested before the operation to ensure their viability.

While all this was discreetly arranged, Helen, a Lancaster teacher, was preparing for death after years of fighting autoimmune hepatitis – a disease in which the immune system attacks the liver.

After falling ill in 2008, she was placed on the list of emergency transplants and a match was found within a week. "It took me a year to get right back to the surgery," she said, "my body was broken."

Helen lived normally until 2016, when her liver was attacked again. She was also diagnosed with a cardiac malformation requiring surgery to insert a stent.

She became so weak that she was again placed on the list of organ transplants in March 2017. However, her risk of failure for the second time placed her in 47th place to make a high quality donation after liver death (DBD).

"I was so, so bad. I spent the next four months dying in the hospital, "says Helen. "I became extremely yellow and I was really skinny. I looked horrible.

"I was on the list, but until it was my turn, they could not do anything for me. I was waiting and I was waiting and felt myself withering. My family tried and tried to push me up the list, but there was no movement. "

The hospital even offered Helen and Darryl, 28, the opportunity to get married in her chapel, but the couple refused because Helen thought it would mean she was giving up her chance to live. She said, "I've always hoped to be able to heal." But as early as the month of August, Helen's deteriorated so much that she was taken into palliative care and asked to go home. at her place to die. She said, "I had abandoned all hope. I fought for so long and I tried to stay positive. I asked Darryl to take me home to die. He was helpless. It was absolutely horrible for us.

"I was on my death bed. I wrote letters to my family for when I was gone. "

But just one day after she asked to be brought home, a donor consistent with a "low quality" liver was found in northern England.

In a race against the clock, the Transmedics box was placed on a flight to the United Kingdom and at the bedside of its donor. And her incredible conservation techniques meant that she met all the conditions for Helen.

The magic box was then transported to Leeds and Helen was prepared for an operation that would save her life – and would make her the first person in the UK to have a second transplant with the help of the machine.

Helen says, "We were all absolutely on the moon. They said that I only had until the end of the week. I did not think I had a new liver, I had to accept death.

"The machine saved my life and can save a lot of others. All that was said to me, is that the donor was in the north of England.

"The liver was put in the machine and sent to Leeds. He preserved the organ, kept it in good health and made it possible. Without that, I would not be here now.

"What the company did to send me the machine was absolutely amazing. They saved me completely and changed my life. "

In a few days, Helen's jaundice was gone – and 10 days after the operation, she was allowed to go home. Mr. Attia told us that the machine was the "Rolls-Royce" of organ transplantation. He said: "The livers of DCD are of lower quality and have a higher risk of transplantation. The machine tests the function of the organ.

"It's also a way to avoid damaging the liver.

"It is kept warm and supplied with oxygen. With Helen, the DBD liver was not available to us. She was very ill and disadvantaged by the distribution system.

"The only way to cure her was to use a device using the liver with a DCD. She needed a transplant urgently and we approached TransMedics for humanitarian reasons. They agreed to send it to us without any hesitation.

"They responded within 24 hours and the machine was available to us within a week."

Similar machines being part of a European trial are used in a handful of hospitals in the UK, but none were available for Helen in Leeds.

The OCS infusion machine is not readily available to patients as it is still being tested in the United States, which is expected to be completed in December 2020. Helen is now turning to the future and will marry the welding inspector Darryl in May 2020 in their local church. . She says her wedding will be "full of music, love and laughter".

Over the past eight months, Helen has amazed doctors with her flawless recovery and said she felt better now than she had been in years.

"I can not thank the company or my doctors too much. I can not say with words how lucky I feel, "she says. "I have a life now. There is no better gift.

Lift the lid miraculously

The Transmedics Organ Processing System (OCS) is described by its inventors as a "multi-organ portable preservation technology".

The box mimics the conditions inside the human body, minimizes the risk of organ damage in case of bad blood supply and ensures that they are kept in perfect condition.

There are three types of OCS machines: the lungs, the liver and the heart.

Warm, oxygenated blood is pumped through the organs as if they were in a functional and living state. As a result, the lung breathes, the heart beats and the liver produces bile.

The machine badyzes the functioning of the organs and provides better conditions than the cold storage – the normal way of preserving the organs.

The OCS liver machine was subjected to its first clinical trials in August 2015. Until now, it has involved 300 people and focused on the side effects and outcomes after the transplant. The results will be known in 2020.

Similar machines are being tested by another company in Europe. If they succeed, it is hoped that they will be available worldwide.