{"id":147956,"date":"2025-10-27T15:08:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T15:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/147956\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T15:08:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T15:08:14","slug":"i-donated-my-late-sons-heart-for-a-life-saving-transplant-one-day-i-turned-on-the-tv-and-knew-the-person-on-screen-had-received-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/147956\/","title":{"rendered":"I donated my late son’s heart for a life-saving transplant – one day I turned on the TV and KNEW the person on screen had received it"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man who bravely donated his late son’s heart to a mystery recipient in need of a transplant has revealed the moment he ‘knew’ he’d found the man who received it after seeing him on TV.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alison Hammond<\/a> and Dermot O’Leary<\/a> were joined by Robert Meiklem, whose son Robbie, a keen football player, passed away from suicide in 2023 aged 19.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Robert opened up on his experience of deciding to donate his son’s organs to medicine, in order to aid those on the organ donation list and help to save a life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Robbie’s organs helped to save the lives of five people, Robert didn’t know who the organs had been donated to, and patients are not given the details of recipients.<\/p>\n

But that didn’t stop Robert, 59, from discovering the man who had received his son’s heart, after spotting Colin Gray on TV speaking about his heart transplant.<\/p>\n

Colin, 62, took to STV’s Scotland Tonight special, A Second Chance of Life, where he opened up about receiving a heart through organ donation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A man who bravely donated his late son’s heart to a mystery recipient in need of a transplant has revealed the moment he ‘knew’ he’d found the man who received it after seeing him on TV<\/p>\n

\"Robert <\/p>\n

Robert Meiklem son Robbie, a keen football player, passed away from suicide in 2023 aged 19<\/p>\n

The broadcaster happened to be in the hospital at the time of Colin’s procedure, and filmed the whole thing for broadcast on screens across Scotland.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

After footage showed the heart still beating inside its preservation box, a ‘gut feeling’ made Robert certain the heart due to be implanted into Colin was his son’s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He told Alison, 50, and Dermot, 52: ‘It was my daughter who said that Robbie wanted to donate his organs if he ever passed away, so we decided as a family to do that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘At that time, you’re in a cloud, you don’t really know what you’re doing or saying, but we agreed to it all, and we decided to call it Robbie’s Legacy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘My sister had watched this documentary, and said, “Why don’t you watch this, it might give you some hope where Robbie donated his organs”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I watched it that night, it was seven times, and I just got a gut feeling seeing that heart, something inside me was saying, “That’s my son’s heart”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I didn’t know it but I just got a gut feeling. I thought it was depression and that I wanted it to be his, but my daughters got in contact with Colin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I got his number, I phoned him, I didn’t mention anything at first about Robbie, I just wanted to ask, “Are you OK?” and we struck up a friendship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Colin, <\/p>\n

Colin, 62, took to STV’s Scotland Tonight special, A Second Chance of Life, where he opened up about receiving a heart through organ donation<\/p>\n

\"Robbie's <\/p>\n

Robbie’s heart was transplanted into Colin through life-changing surgery<\/p>\n

‘Then I came out with it in the second call saying I thought he had my son’s heart, and we didn’t find out until seven months later and when we finally got that letter, we both broke down.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

Colin \u2013 who had been suffering late stage heart failure before his transplant – joined Robert on the sofa to further discuss the moment they finally got in contact.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Robert, who had performed CPR on his son after discovering him unconscious and battled to save his life, finally had the news confirmed when Colin’s letter was uncovered which detailed his transplant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Robert added: ‘I tried to correspond with them to find out who it was, we were sitting in limbo but we never confirmed it until we got that letter… my gut feeling was right.’<\/p>\n

Since meeting, the duo have become firm friends, and even have a matching tattoo in dedication to Robbie: a heart with the ECG lines of his heartbeat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Robert revealed that more than ’70’ family and friends from both sides had gone on to have the tattoo as a memorial for Robbie, and celebration of Colin’s successful transplant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It comes after This Morning host Cat Deeley was left holding back tears as\u00a0a man sobbed down the phone during a devastating dementia call-in to discuss his symptoms.<\/p>\n

The TV presenter and her co-star Ben Shephard invited members of the public to call into the ITV show to talk through any worries they had about the condition.<\/p>\n

\"Robert <\/p>\n

Robert and Colin joined Dermot O’Leary and Alison Hammond on This Morning<\/p>\n

\"Colin <\/p>\n

Colin received the heart via a transplant that was shown on TV months later<\/p>\n

Cat, 48, was left emotional when things took a shattering turn, as a man who had been suffering from symptoms of dementia phoned in to ask for help.<\/p>\n

The man, who went by his first name Colin, appeared choked up as he revealed he’d been experiencing increasingly worsening symptoms.<\/p>\n

The condition affects the way a person’s brain functions, causing a decline in memory, concentration, language and judgement, mood and behaviour.<\/p>\n

Symptoms of dementia are progressive, which can lead to struggles with performing daily activities for sufferers of more developed types of the syndrome.<\/p>\n

Colin said during the phone in: ‘I’m going through the procedures of being diagnosed with dementia, and I’ve been to the memory clinic, and now they are saying I’ve got to see a consultant to get a proper diagnosis.’<\/p>\n

Getting emotional, he continued: ‘I just wanted to know what happens afterwards because I’ve got family and I’m worried about forgetting things which I’ve started to do already.’<\/p>\n

Colin went on to reveal that while he still recognised his children, he had started beginning to struggle to ‘remember their names’ when around them.<\/p>\n

Cat appeared to be fighting back tears upon hearing his story.<\/p>\n

This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV1 and is available to stream on ITVX.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who bravely donated his late son’s heart to a mystery recipient in need of a transplant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[17555,118,87165,18,117,19,17,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-147956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-alison-hammond","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-dermot-o","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115446763343574810","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}