Hélène Campbell raised awareness of organ donation with a successful social media campaign
Hélène Campbell, the Ottawa woman known for raising awareness about organ donation, is recovering after a seven-hour lung transplant operation. Two days after receiving a pair of transplanted lungs, Hélène Campbell has been able to breath “a bit on her own,” according to her mother, Manon Campbell, who’s taken over the twitter handle @alungstory since her daughter went into surgery.
Campbell was one of the more than 1,500 people waiting for an organ donation in Ontario, according to the Trillium Gift of Life Network, but made her case famous by raising awareness of organ donation with a social media campaign that got responses from celebrities including Justin Bieber, Ellen DeGeneres and Don Cherry.
Campbell had discovered she had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis last summer when she collapsed on a hiking trail. She had been on a waiting list for organ donations since July.