7-year-old becomes youngest in UK to have 5 organ transplants in 10-hour surgery

A seven-year-old in Britain has become one of the youngest patients to undergo a multi-transplant operation to replace not one, but five organs.

Jay Crouch received two new kidneys, a liver, a small intestine and a pancreas from a single donor in a mammoth 10-hour operation.

Crouch, who suffers from anemia, small bowel syndrome and chronic renal failure was forced to eat through a tube before procedure allowed him to finally taste and swallow.

Following a four week stay, Jay was discharged from Birmingham Children's Hospital, where he was the first child in 20 years to undergo the complex procedure, last Monday and is recovering at home.

According to Crouch’s mum Katie Freestone the operation was quite incredible because they did not expect it to last that long.

“He’s a little superhuman,” she said.

When Jay was just six weeks old his small intestine became twisted, causing extensive damage to his major organs. 

Speaking of her son's surgery, Freestone said, “We knew how amazing he is and we thought he would do well but initially we were told he would be in for a much longer period, a few months, but it's actually only been just over four weeks, so everybody's pretty amazed at how he's done.”

She was talking to MailOnline.

Jay's donor was a similar age to him. The donor's various organs were being removed while others were transplanted into Jay.

Fresstone added that when she got the call for regarding the availability of organs, her initial reaction was that of sadness for the family who have lost someone at this time.

Jay celebrated being able to eat food for the first time with a slice of buttered toast.

Surgeons removed Jay's liver, while the kidneys, pancreas, liver and intestine were being removed from the donor.

The new set of organs were attached to Jay's aorta, which is the body's largest artery, in his stomach. This gave Jay a bloody supply, while blood went back to his heart via the vein coming out of his liver.

The donor's small intestine was then attached to Jay's bowel. The youngster now has four kidneys and two pancreases.

Speaking about the procedure, transplant surgeon Khalid Sharif said that there are two connections from the vessels points of view, which is one artery giving the blood to all five organs and one vein taking the blood out of it.