Chloe got three more years with her family thanks to a heart transplant from ... trends now
From the moment we met and gave each other a hug it felt so comfortable,’ says Tracey Pescod, describing meeting Judy Coutinho for the first time a couple of weeks ago.
‘We’d been messaging each other a lot but actually to meet her in person was something I will never forget,’ says Tracey, still tearful at the memory.
Like any new friends, ‘we talked about our children and showed each other photos’. But this interest in each other’s family went far beyond polite regard, as these two mothers have been brought together in the most tragic shared circumstances.
Tracey Pescod, left, who was Chloe's mother and Judy Coutinho, whose son Alex's heart helped save Chloe's life
Both have been through the almost intolerable pain of losing a child, but their link goes deeper than that. For the sudden death of Judy’s son Alex helped save the life of Tracey’s daughter Chloe. At the time, Chloe was just 20 and was critically ill in hospital, her organs shutting down because of heart failure.
It was Judy’s selfless determination that bought Chloe precious extra years of life — still reeling at the loss of her son, and just a few hours after Judy and her partner had tried desperately to save his life by performing CPR, Judy told the doctors that Alex’s organs should be donated to save others.
Chloe received his heart. The transplant was life-transforming for the teenager and her family, who were able to go on holiday for the first time in years, Chloe was even able to get a part-time job.
But then, in February last year, almost three years after the transplant, tragedy struck again: Chloe’s body started to reject her donated heart, and she died, aged 22. Tracey, 47, a former restaurant manager from Sunderland, was beside herself with grief. But she knew that Judy, who had by chance messaged her for the first time a week earlier, via social media, would understand how she was feeling.
In fact, Judy was one of the first people Tracey told what had happened, and over the past year it is Judy who Tracey has turned to when she feels overwhelmed with grief. ‘Her son saved my daughter, but now we have lost them both and we totally appreciate how each other feels,’ says Tracey. ‘If I’m having a bad day, I know that I can message Judy and she will understand.’
Judy, 61, says when she heard that Chloe had died she felt deeply for Tracey: ‘I knew what it was like to lose a child suddenly. But it also made me feel guilty that Alex’s heart hadn’t managed to beat on longer for Chloe.’
Theirs is an extraordinary friendship, with its roots in a note Chloe had written to Judy 14 months after her operation. It was anonymous, and came via the transplant services, as is the protocol. In it Chloe expressed her gratitude at her second chance at life (see right). The card happened to land on Judy’s doormat on what would have been Alex’s 28th birthday. Chloe said: ‘I will forever be extremely grateful to have been honoured with a beautiful gift from Alex...’
‘It was one of the most special things I’ve ever been given,’ says Judy, who is a paediatric nurse and lives in Lancashire with partner Gary Cunningham, 62, a retired fireman. She has three other sons, Olly, 30, Rick, 27, and Stephen, 24. Alex’s death in January 2020 was a terrible ‘bolt from the blue’. He’d come home for Christmas from Chicago, where he worked as a financial auditor. He was staying at his brother’s apartment in Manchester catching up with university friends and was due back home when he pulled out, saying he felt unwell.
When Judy called the following day she could tell instantly that something was seriously wrong.
‘He sounded odd — very vacant and confused,’ she says. ‘He kept asking what day it was, and alarm bells started ringing. I told him I was coming to get him.’
Judy's son Alex, who suffered a catastrophic brain haemorrhage. Her instinct was that he would want to be a donor and his organs helped save six people
She and Gary jumped in the car to make the hour-long journey but when they arrived at the apartment there was no reply.
‘We heard a groan and a thud from the other side of the door,’ says Judy. ‘One of the neighbours ran for the concierge who let us in. We found Alex collapsed on the floor. I was hysterical.’
Judy rang 999 while Gary performed CPR on Alex. ‘We couldn’t comprehend what had happened. He was fit and healthy.’
At Manchester Royal Infirmary an MRI scan revealed Alex had suffered a catastrophic brain haemorrhage. ‘The minute they said that, being a nurse, I knew that it meant he wouldn’t recover,’ says Judy. ‘Our lives changed in that single moment.’
But her mind was racing with what Alex would have wanted and her instinct was he would want to be an organ donor. ‘We had never talked about it, but I knew that’s what Alex would have wanted, that his organs should help other people,’ says Judy.
His heart, lungs and both kidneys went to separate people, while his liver was divided between two recipients. Six people were saved that day — one of them Chloe. For two weeks she had been lying in a hospital bed, her life hanging in the balance.
Chloe was born with a rare condition, Sengers syndrome, which affects the mitochondria, the ‘batteries’ in every cell. As a result, she had cardiomyopathy (thickening of the heart), spina bifida and cataracts.
She had surgery on her spine at six months old and defied expectations. She learned to walk and made steady progress at school. But aged 16 a routine check detected heart problems, and soon after, another check showed her heart function was rapidly declining — ‘it was only 20 per cent of what it should be,’ says Tracey. Chloe was put on medication and doctors warned them she might need a heart transplant.
‘But we thought that would be way in the future,’ says Tracey.
However, soon after, on Christmas Eve in 2019, Chloe said she didn’t feel well and kept needing the loo, and her parents took her to Sunderland Royal Hospital.
There, doctors broke the news that her heart failure had worsened and caused multiple organ failure. Chloe was transferred to the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle and put on to a life support machine. Her only hope was a transplant.
‘We were shattered. We didn’t know if a heart would be found in time,’ says Tracey. ‘She was put on the super urgent list — they couldn’t tell us how many days she had left, we just had to take it each day at a time.
Over the next fortnight, three hearts became available but each was eventually judged to be
