Saving Sarah

July 9, 2018
Murnaghan, a former television producer, shares the suspenseful story of her 10-year-old daughter’s 2013 fight for life. Born with cystic fibrosis, Sarah had been on the waiting list for a lung transplant for 18 months when her parents learned that an arbitrary age cutoff of 12 prohibited Sarah from obtaining adult donor lungs that could be resized to fit a child (the rule by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network has since been revised). With their daughter days from dying in Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the Murnaghans launched a media blitz and filed a lawsuit that resulted in a dramatic 11th-hour court decision to place Sarah on the list for adult lungs. With three other children at home cared for by relatives, the Murnaghans maintained a round-the-clock vigil at Sarah’s side. Due to a deadly graft dysfunction,the first set of lungs failed, and Sarah was placed on a temporary heart-lung bypass machine until a few days later when another set of lungs became available and a successful transplant was made. The author’s straightforward yet heartfelt prose includes short entries by her husband, sisters, and even Sarah. Readers will be deeply moved by this harrowing story and this family’s fortitude, anguish, and love.