‘My son’s donated organs saved nine lives’

A university student’s decision to sign up as an organ donor led to him saving nine lives after his death at the age of 22.

Tom Wilson died after being hit on the back of the head with a hockey stick during a training session, his mother Lisa Wilson said.

Mrs Wilson, from Barnstaple, Devon, said her son’s decision to sign up as a donor at his university’s freshers fair when he was 18 had also led to the lives of a further 41 people being transformed.

Now a South West ambassador for the organ donor register, she is sharing Tom’s story to encourage more people to sign up.

Mrs Wilson said she was doing some planning for the following day’s teaching on the evening of 8 December 2015 when she received a call from her son’s best friend Rob.

He told her Tom had been hurt during training and in the background she could hear someone asking if Tom was still breathing.

Tom, who was a member of the Old Loughtonians Hockey Club in Essex, had been hit in the back of the head with a hockey stick.

The blow was so severe it dislodged his brain stem and he suffered a subarachnoid brain haemorrhage.

Tom was rushed to the Royal London Hospital but the family was told nothing could be done to save him.

While at the hospital, they were informed that Tom had signed up to the organ donor register.

“I wanted to wake him up and say I’m so proud of you,” she said.

She said part of Tom’s liver went to a young girl, Fatima, now 12, while his heart went to a 60-year-old man, Gordon, who is now 70.

Mrs Wilson said she had been able to contact them and had since met both of them, including at the British Transplant Games where they were able to compete.

“It was surreal. I stood by two people who are alive because of Tom – and Tom’s heart was beating next to me,” she said.

Mrs Wilson said her husband Graham died from sepsis at the age of 63 in February 2016, just a few months after Tom’s death.

Having moved from Hornchurch, Essex, back to her home town of Barnstaple, she decided she wanted to do something special to mark NHS Blood and Transplant Organ Donation Week 2025.

She asked the local council if the Albert Clock in Barnstaple Town Square could be lit up in pink to mark this and they agreed, with the clock being lit up for the entire week.

“It might make somebody else think about signing up to the register and that would mean the world to me,” she said.

Mrs Wilson, who is retired, said about 8,000 people were waiting for transplants.

Under Max and Keira’s Law, which came into effect in 2020, consent will be presumed with people having to opt out if they wish not to be a donor.

It was named after Keira Ball from Barnstaple, who died aged nine in 2017, and Max Johnson, whose life was saved by her heart.