Mum who received 'heart of dead soldier' says she developed strange cravings for beer and other usual traits after transplant

Sheron Williamson 'died' but was brought back with a new heart and has started to develop strange and unexplained symptoms

Sheron is pictured following her heart transplant in March 2011 with daughter Sheroni

A transplant mum who believes she received the heart of a dead soldier says she developed strange cravings and could not shift the smell of damp socks.

When Sheron Williamson’s heart stopped in hospital , her daughter watched her 'die'. Her monitor flatlined. She saw a glowing white light – but medics brought her back.

Four days later, she received a new heart- rumoured to be from a soldier who died from injuries sustained in the Iraq War.

Sheron’s life was saved – but she was haunted by the hero whose death was her salvation.

When she awoke from the operation, she started experiencing strange, unexplained symptoms.

She began craving beer – something she hated – and could not shift the smell of damp woolly socks for over a year.

The 50-year-old believes those unusual side-effects were down to ‘wearing somebody else’s heart’.

Sheron, who now lives in Solihull, told the Sunday Mercury how she suddenly became ill after a run, and managed to get herself to hospital just in time.

“I had just been for a 10-mile run around Edgbaston Reservoir and was walking back to my car when I started to feel unwell,” she recalled.

“My legs were shaking, and I started to vomit. I took myself to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

“I’d been there around six times recently, but they kept reassuring me I was fit and healthy. On this particular morning it was different. They told me I had just 12 days to live.”

Sheron was diagnosed with giant-cell myocarditis, a rare disorder where the heart is inflamed.

She was put on medication and underwent two surgical ablations – procedures to regularise the rhythm of her heart.

But suddenly she suffered huge blood loss and cardiac arrest.

“I was sitting in bed eating my cornflakes, when I felt something wet on my side,” she says now. “At first, I thought I had spilled the milk.

“Then, when I looked down, it was blood. There was so much that it had gone on the floor and run towards the door.

“I fell unconscious, and my heart monitor was flatlining. That’s when I saw the light that everybody talks about.

“My heart had stopped. When I woke up, my daughter told me that she had watched me die. It was so traumatic for her

“After that, medics decided enough was enough. I couldn’t stay awake and my liver was shutting down. I needed a transplant.”

Sheron was put on the transplant list, and without a new heart she was warned she would survive less than two weeks.

Miraculously, four days later on March 19, 2011, a heart was found and Sheron underwent transplant surgery.

“As a mother to a 14-year-old I was distraught, our lives were turned upside down,” she says. “But four days later, thanks to a donor, I woke up wearing a new heart.

“I wasn’t told much about the man who donated his heart to me, apart from the fact that he was 38-years-old and had two babies."

The gift of the donor family had saved Sheron’s life, meaning that she can now see her teenage daughter grow up.

But almost as soon as she had woken up from the life-changing operation, carried out by Professor Robert Bonser, the mum-of-one started experiencing strange symptoms.

“There was a rumour that he was a soldier who had been flown back from Iraq to the QE Hospital,” says Sheron.

“When I woke up, there were wires all coming out of me – and all I could smell was wet woolly socks.

“Apparently. I was screaming that I wanted a beer. It’s all I kept saying.

“Eventually, a member of my family was able to bring me a can of beer into the ward, and I just spat it out.

“Who knows, but perhaps it was because I was wearing a soldier’s heart that I was getting his cravings.

“All I could smell was those socks for about a year, but thankfully it’s faded now.”

The decision by her generous donor to sign up to the organ register means Sheron has been able to see her daughter Sheroni go to university.

She is now in her final year, studying nursing. She wants to become a heart nurse.

“I am so grateful I have been able to see my daughter grow up,” says Sheron.

“Sheroni has been inspired by my experience and wants to help by working as a transplant co-ordinator or coronary care nurse.”

Now, Sheron is urging people in the black community to sign up as blood and organ donors because the UK faces a severe shortage in donors from ethnic backgrounds.

31 patients from black backgrounds died while waiting for a transplant There are currently 632 black people waiting for a transplant, the vast majority of them in need of a kidney.

Due to the lack of donors, black people will wait an average of six months longer for an organ than people from white backgrounds.

And last year, 31 patients from black backgrounds died while waiting for a transplant.

“Because of our culture and our beliefs within our community, organ donation is not talked about much in our community,” explains Sheron.

"When someone dies we celebrate with Nine-nights, which is a celebration for nine days and nights of someone’s life.

“At the end they pass into the spirit world, and for many people they want that person to go intact. It is daft and silly, but it’s a tradition.

“Rather than give them nine-nights, by giving your organs when you die, you could give som “I’m alive, thanks to my donor,” she adds. “I think if you’re willing to take a blood transfusion or an organ, you should be willing to give back.

“Not everyone is eligible, but if you are it’s the greatest gift. Tomorrow is promised to nobody, and you never know what it might bring.”

eone nine weeks, or even nine months or nine years. Imagine that!