Mom listens to late daughter's heart beat after little girl died in ATV crash and donated it to another child
The heart of eight-year-old Maddy Schein is now beating inside the chest of Mireya Moody, another eight-year-old girl, after Maddy was tragically killed in an unexpected ATV accident in 2022.
Last summer, Maddy's mother met the little girl her daughter saved with her donated organs and, filled with tears, listened to her pulsing heart through a stethoscope.
In a touching video shared by the Cleveland Clinic on Tuesday, Lisa Schein tearfully bowed her head and nodded in acceptance moments before the two shared a long, heartfelt embrace.
'I wanted to run up to Mireya, squeeze her and never let her go because that was all I had left of my girl,' Lisa told Cleveland Clinic.
'Meeting Mireya's mom, Bianca, talking with her and hearing her story about Mireya's illness was hard,' she added. 'But it helps to know a piece of Maddy lives on.'
Mireya was your typical, energetic second-grader until her life abruptly changed on January 25, 2022.
As her mother worked as an HR manager for a medical transportation company, the eight-year-old girl was in the care of her grandmother, who grew concerned when her granddaughter became unusually sluggish.
'By the time I picked her up, she had gotten worse,' Bianca Robinson told Cleveland Clinic. 'She didn't even have energy to walk to the car.'
Her daughter couldn't keep anything down - not even water - without vomiting, leaving Bianca frantic over what could be wrong with her otherwise healthy child.
'She was completely normal - happy, healthy, going to see her pediatrician on a regular basis,' Mireya's mother told WKYC News.
'It honestly came out of nowhere for us. The day before she got sick, she was playing in the snow with her dad, making snow angels.'
It was when Bianca rushed her little girl to the hospital that her worst nightmare unfolded - Mireya's heart was failing.
'We were in shock,' Bianca told Cleveland Clinic. 'We couldn't comprehend, at the time, how it was possible. She had almost never been sick before.'
Doctors determined that Mireya was suffering from left ventricular non-compaction cardiomyopathy (LVNC) - a rare and serious form of heart failure.
Immediately, the second-grader was given multiple rounds of medications to control severe symptoms of the disease, including rapid heartbeats and other heart arrhythmias.
Within three weeks, Mireya's condition worsened - she slept all day and couldn't tolerate the medications - prompting the medical team to seek specialty cardiovascular treatment at Cleveland Clinic Children's.
Though LVNC is treatable, it can't be cured. In certain cases, such as Mireya's, a heart transplant is the only chance at a second life - but the process of obtaining one can take well over a year.
'You can't do anything but rely on your faith and the healthcare professionals,' Bianca said. 'I felt helpless and angry, not understanding why this was going on and why it had to happen to her.'
As Mireya's condition rapidly declined, the medical team put her on a Berlin heart - a large machine that assists in pumping the heart, helping to maintain her strength and stabilize her condition.
However, unexpected news came in April 2022 - a suitable heart was found.
'My mom called me crying and screaming: "They found a heart! They found a heart!"' Bianca told WKYC.
'It's very conflicting, because obviously this is my child, and then there's this family that is going to have to live out your worst nightmare,' she added.
The heart belonged to eight-year-old Maddy, who lost her life following a sudden and tragic accident.
Just two days later, Mireya underwent an eight-hour, successful heart transplant operation.
From the first moment in rehabilitation, Bianca described that her daughter 'took off like a rocket', Cleveland Clinic reported.
In a matter of no time, Mireya was walking and talking again. Her eight-week stay in the hospital was swiftly reduced to three weeks.
Throughout the entirety of Mireya's terrifying health journey, Bianca made it clear that she would be open to meeting the donor's family - if they were willing.
One year later, Bianca received a letter from Lisa, Maddy's mother.
The pair shared touching stories about Mireya and Maddy, and were deeply moved to discover just how similar their eight-year-old daughters were.
'The way Lisa described Maddy, she and Mireya sounded like they were practically the same child,' Bianca told Cleveland Clinic, adding that the girls both loved the same movies and singing.
Lisa agreed, and said: 'We learned the girls even shared some of the same phrases. I also loved being able to tell them stories about who Maddy was - about her infectious laugh and bubbly personality. I think that's when my heart began to start healing.'
Finally, in the summer of 2024, both families met face-to-face at a park near Mireya's University Heights home.
In an deeply emotional moment shared by the Cleveland Clinic, Lisa put on a special stethoscope and listened to the sound of her young daughter's heartbeat once more.
'It was just joy. Just joy,' Bianca told WKYC about the special moment.
'I can only imagine Lisa being able to hear Maddy's heart again and knowing that it's being well taken care of and that it's living on through Mireya, who is so sweet, so loving, so smart, and just so happy all of the time.'
During their meeting, the Schein family gifted Mireya with an avocado-shaped plushie, which she lovingly named Maddy - and now sleeps with every night.
Now, for Bianca, expressing her gratitude is impossible. Though Maddy's life ended much too short, she saved her daughter.
'Thank you is not enough,' Bianca told WKYC.
'I've seen the video of Lisa having to walk her daughter down that hallway at that hospital for the last time. There is nothing that I could say to tell her how much she changed our lives. She was thinking of others in a time where she was losing something so precious to her.'
Maddy gave four people a second chance at life - adults and children - through her heart, liver, kidneys and pancreas donations.
'I will continue to carry on Maddie's legacy for as long as I can,' Bianca said. 'Any event in honor of Maddie, if we can, we will make it, because I think it's important that we're there to represent this very important thing.'
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