A couple whose daughter died from a cardiac arrest brought on by an epileptic seizure say she has saved “lives in her death”.
Beth and Malcolm Owen’s daughter Menna, 18, donated her heart and lungs after she collapsed at the family’s home in Tonteg, Rhondda Cynon Taf, on 1 March 2025, dying in hospital.
The couple have since received letters from the man and woman who Menna saved, with both doing “incredible well”.
“Perhaps Menna’s purpose was to make an incredible difference to us every day of her life, and to save lives in her death,” Beth said.
Figures show that family consent for organ donation across the UK has dropped by almost a fifth in five years, from 69% in 2020/21 to 57% in 2025/26.
Amid this decline, the NHS wants a million more people in the UK to sign up for the organ donor register, with health experts urging people to express their interest and, crucially, to tell their families of their intentions.
Beth said that on the day her daughter died, Menna – who had “well controlled” epilepsy – had been at work and went for a lie down.
“That was a bit out of the ordinary, but she’d been working long hours, I assumed she was tired,” Beth said.
She later found Menna in the bathroom.
“She was in cardiac arrest when I got in there,” Beth said, adding that Menna had suffered a catastrophic brain injury which she would not recover from.