The legacy of Jemima Layzell - the girl whose death saved eight people

A legacy of a Somerset girl who saved eight lives as the UK's highest ever organ donor lives on a decade after her death.

Jemima Layzell, from Horton near Ilminster, was 13 when she collapsed with a burst brain aneurysm while preparing for her mother's birthday party in March 2012.

In 2017 it was announced by NHS Blood and Transplant that Jemima was the only recorded donor in the UK to have had solid organs transplanted into eight different people.

A trust set up in her name continues to help children whose lives have been permanently changed by brain injury.

The Jemima Layzell Trust is marking the tenth anniversary of her death with a push for funding Credit: Layzell family

Her mum, Sophy Layzell, told ITV News: "I am really pleased with what we’ve achieved. I do feel, as people often say to me, it’s like a positive thing to have come out of something so terrible and so hard for us as a family to live with.

"It’s been a way for us to continue positively and to think of Jemima in a positive way and to still have her, sort of, with us."

To this day Jemima’s trust is helping children whose lives have been permanently changed by brain injury.

15 year-old Millie Rose Bush is just one young person who has suffered a brain injury that has been helped by the Jemima Layzell Trust Credit: Family photo

Millie Rose Bush, 15, has been given a touch pad by Bristol Royal Hospital for Children. It is just one of many pieces of kit that have been funded by the trust.

Speech and language therapist Helen Cullimore said: "We work with people who have lost their ability to speak or to swallow because of their brain injury.

"These devices allow you to use the language skills you've still got and reconnect you with the environment, which helps people get back to education, talking with their friends, their family and access to rehab and therapy."

As part of plans to mark the decade since Jemima died, the Trust is holding a book auction, which closes on March 25.

Sophy Layzell hopes the charity will continue to grow and evolve and continue to help children. She said: "We hoped that Jemima would survive and would come home but we knew that she would be very disabled and we knew it would be an absolutely massive challenge.

"So, for me, it’s just thinking 'imagine that was me and what can we do, what can we help put in place, what can we do for you to make it easier?'"