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BBC Breakfast guest tearful as she opens up on 'everyone's worst nightmare'
Reach Daily Express | December 7, 2025 5:39 PM CST

A mum who lost her son in an accident was tearful on BBC Breakfast as she revealed she had donated his heart to keep another child alive.

Anna-Louise Bates's son Fraser, seven, and husband Stuart were both hit by a car and killed on their way home from a Christmas party 10 years ago and both had their organs donated. They went on to save at least four lives.

"It's a night that I will never forget," she said as she appeared on the BBC show's Sunday instalment (December 7), which was hosted by Emma Vardy and Ben Thompson.

Anna-Louise shared how she was asked about organ donation after Stuart and Fraser died. "It's surreal," she said. "Surreal isn't even, like, the proper word for it. But it's, yeah, it is everyone's worst nightmare."

Since the tragedy, Anna-Louise has worked to raise awareness and get people talking about donation. She also set up the charity Believe, aiming to reduce the stigma surrounding the subject.

This week, after months of hard work, she opened a memorial garden in Cardiff to honour donors. In attendance was a special guest, 10-year-old Roman, whose life was saved by Fraser's heart.

Fighting back tears, Anna-Louise said: "To know that Fraser has made such a huge difference, even symbolically in Roman, but to the wider community and the effect that the heart really can go on, is just phenomenal."

"People even venturing out in this horrendous weather just shows how much people have believed in it," she said. "And I just, yeah, it's overwhelming.

"The garden, for me, it's a place to honour and really reflect the values that Stu and Fraser taught me, that life is for living and life is a gift."

Stuart and Fraser died days after the soft opt-out law came into effect in Wales, which presumes a person's consent to donate unless they or the family say otherwise.

Wales correspondent Thomas Morgan explained: "A few weeks earlier, Anna and Stuart had already agreed to be donors. But it was still a lengthy administration process, which she found emotionally exhausting at such a difficult time."

Anna-Louise said: "People don't understand that the family needs to give consent. And what we really need to be saying to people is just because the law has changed, it doesn't mean that this is as easy as you might think or appear.

"And these conversations desperately need to be had."

BBC Breakfast airs on BBC One.


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