New Heart Transplant UK Valentine's Day Spot has a Surprising Ending

This Valentine’s Day, Heart Transplant UK is collaborating with Stacie Pridden – a 24 year old awaiting a heart transplant - to launch the ‘Give Your Heart This Valentine’s Day’ campaign. 

The ‘Give Your Heart’ website will encourage the British public to sign up as heart donors, potentially helping the 265 people currently awaiting heart transplants. Giveyourheart.co.uk will allow friends and lovers to ‘give’ their heart on an ‘e-card’ which will then register them on to the donor list as soon as their ‘heart’ is sent. 

The focus of the campaign is Stacie Pridden: a twin, a student and the 22nd child in the UK to be diagnosed with Pulmonary Hypertension. When Stacie was added to the donor list she was informed she had three years left to live, she has now been waiting two years and nine months, meaning she may only have three months left to receive a successful heart transplant. An avid blogger, Stacie has been writing about her journey since 2012 on her website, ‘Life is Worth the Fight’.

Last year 145 heart transplants took place in the UK, meaning, sadly only 8 out of 10 people receive the heart transplant they require. The campaign is aimed at highlighting the shortage of donors in the UK – which follows the ‘opt in’ to organ donation, rather than ‘opt out’ system. 

Transplants are vital operations and their success depends entirely on the generosity of donors and their families who make this life-saving gift. 

“I would like to think this campaign will get people to sign up to the organ donor register – or at least talk to their family members about it. That is a lot of what holds organ donation back, is that families just don’t know what their relatives would have wanted.” says Stacie. 

She has aspirations for her future like any other 24 year old. “I have so many plans to travel; I would love to go to Rome, Paris, just everywhere. 

My biggest motivation is my friends and family, because they have been with me though all of it and I would love to still be here for the special occasions; my sister having her third baby and my twin getting married next year (2016). I wont ever stop fighting, I will always carry on and I will try my hardest to still be here for everything.”

John Fisher from Heart Transplant UK continues, “Around 1,000 people die every year – that’s three people every day - waiting for an organ donation. The campaign has been launched to help sign people on to the donor register. Nine out of ten people support organ donation, but only three out of ten sign up. Giving your heart this Valentine’s Day takes a whole new meaning when you could be giving someone life”. 

Digital agency DARE created the ‘Give Your Heart This Valentine’s Day’ campaign which was directed by award-winning director James Strong, with the help of Dark Energy Films, Marshall Street Editors, Finish Post Productions, Wave Studios and 7th chamber.