Crash victim's spirit lives on in the bodies of others

Elizabeth Neels decided two years ago to be a donor.

Lori Neels held her daughter's warm hand in the intensive care unit at Waikato Hospital last Saturday and said, "It's okay, Liz, you can go now."

Today, a family somewhere in New Zealand know their small child has been saved by Elizabeth's last gifts - her organs for transplant.

Ms Neels, the "miracle baby" Lori and her husband Mike had tried for 12 years to conceive, died from extensive injuries suffered in a head-on collision with a campervan nine days ago.

Her decision two years ago, when she got her driver's licence, to become an organ donor heralded a rare event - just 15 people this year have died and donated their organs for others to live.

Ms Neels gave her lungs, kidneys, liver, both her femurs and her heart.

Lions supporter Michael Berry was driving the campervan, which crossed the centre-line on the outskirts of Cambridge about 7.40pm.

He does not remember the accident but was told last Saturday, as police interviewed him, that 18-year-old Ms Neels had died.

Berry, a keen rugby player and supporter, was on a trip of a lifetime. He and his two mates had saved for two years to travel the North and South Islands following the Lions.

The 23-year-old honours graduate of Exeter University is distraught and wants to see Elizabeth's family at a restorative justice conference.

He has pleaded guilty to careless driving causing death and also injury to his friend, who broke a leg.

The trio had arrived in Auckland at 10.30am after a two-day trip from Britain. They took a short break at Berry's sister's house, then left about 4pm to drive south to catch the Cook Strait ferry to Christchurch.

Police say fatigue caused the crash.

Elizabeth's parents always thought it would be her making the decision to donate their organs, but they take consolation that the process gave them precious extra hours with their daughter's warm body.

Mr Neels says he understands that a child may have received part of Elizabeth's liver. Thousands of people give blood, he says. "I find it amazing that people think it is amazing what she has done."

The couple remember the battle for their daughter's life, the warming and cooling of her body in intensive care to try to stop her brain dying.

About 7 on Friday night the doctors told them Elizabeth's brain was herniating - a condition which results in damage to the brain tissue.

Mrs Neels held her hand and bade farewell. The couple then gave permission for her organs to be taken. Together they cried as she slipped away, doctors coming and going. At midnight the pupils in her brown eyes dilated. Their baby was gone, but her warm body remained.

"When you look at it from our point of view," says Mrs Neels, "it gave us an extra 12 hours with our baby, who was brain-dead but her body was warm and pliable. We could hold her and talk to her."

Elizabeth's friends gathered at her bedside to sit and talk with their mate.

In the Neels' Cambridge home, Elizabeth smiles from five photos on the piano: at the school ball, Big Day Out, with her grandparents, her friends and with her parents.

Her mother clutches a photo album Elizabeth made for Mother's Day. Inside she wrote: "Love you lots and lots, the daughter you made. I would like you to know you made me and I really appreciate it."

Her parents are now happy that she lived life to the fullest in the four months after she moved out of home to go flatting - a brush with smoking, drinking with friends, boys and ploughing through her savings.

They told such stories in the ICU as they waited for doctors from Auckland to retrieve her organs.

"It was a countdown, the last hour or two, thinking, 'How much longer have we got left?' " says Mr Neels.

Mrs Neels remembers the last walk with her daughter, the 20m to the operating theatre. "Oh my baby, oh my baby, oh my baby - I couldn't say it out loud, not in the ICU."

She thinks she punched and kicked walls as her little girl went.

Mr Neels says hospital staff used the right word when they called at 12.30pm to say their daughter's "body" had been returned. "It was a body, waxen and cold."

In the coming weeks the couple will find out the ages and sex of those who received Elizabeth's last gifts.

"They [doctors] explained the hell on Earth that is life on dialysis," says Mr Neels. "People with lung conditions feel like they're drowning."

He smiles, knowing that already, somewhere, a child has been saved.