2 Israelis regain sight after family of soldier killed in attack donates his corneas
Staff Sgt. Ido Baruch’s mother believes act is in line with her son’s legacy: ‘Part of him lives on in someone else’
Michael Horovitz is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel
The family of a soldier killed by a Palestinian gunman last week has helped two Israelis regain their sight by donating their son’s corneas.
Staff Sgt. Ido Baruch was killed in a shooting attack outside the Shavei Shomron settlement last Tuesday. He was the second soldier within a matter of days to be killed amid a spate of shooting attacks.
Aviva Raanan and Binyamin Goren received the cornea transplants at Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba. The National Transplant Center said the patients expressed both “excitement and sorrow” when they discovered the identity of their donor.
Raanan said she had “waited 6 years” for the operation.
“I knew it was Ido’s cornea from the moment they called me. It’s very sad to hear that a young soldier was killed and that I should receive his cornea,” she told Channel 12 news.
Ido’s mother described the donation as keeping with her son’s legacy.
“It’s basically a kind of will, a legacy of giving, of giving to another, of doing something small for someone else to make them happy. That was Ido,” Einav Baruch told the network.
She added that because of the transplant, she believed “part of Ido lives on in someone else.”
שני ישראלים שבו לראות בזכות קרניות עיניו של הלוחם עידו ברוךhttps://t.co/seGF3VVnkQ pic.twitter.com/cVB5iBXt3O
— ynet עדכוני (@ynetalerts) October 16, 2022
According to the National Transplant Center, 1,000 Israelis are awaiting transplants, and described organ donation as “an expression of social solidarity at the highest level among humanity.”