Geordie Shore star Holly Hagan has shared how her late sister Darci saved the life of a stranger, months after the 19-year-old tragically died.
Darci died after what the family believes was an accidental drug overdose in a Manchester nightclub.
Speaking on Paul C. Brunson’s podcast We Need To Talk, Holly, 33, who is currently pregnant with her second child, revealed that Darci’s heart was the only organ suitable for donation after the tragedy.
The family chose to donate it to give another woman a second chance at life.
Holly admitted the decision to donate came from a place of grief rather than heroism: ‘I’ll be really honest. It was a selfish decision,’ she said.
‘We wanted her life to mean something. We wanted to be able to say that she’d saved a life, like that was for us.
‘That was to give us peace. A lot of people like, “oh, you’re so selfless and brave”. We weren’t, we wanted her to have achieved this.’
Three weeks after the donation, the family received a letter confirming that Darci’s heart had indeed saved a woman’s life.
Holly described the moment as both devastating and comforting: ‘It was such an honour to have been able to be a part of that. As awful as the situation was, I’m so proud of her. She’s achieved more in her short 19 years than many others will. Someone’s children didn’t have to lose their parent. Because of Darci.’
Holly also shared what she called the ‘weirdest thing’ about the donation. Darci had a tattoo beneath her ribs, positioned over her heart, that read: ‘Live where your heart finds life.’
Holly said it felt chillingly significant that Darci’s heart was the only organ that could be donated.
‘Hopefully she is living where her heart has found life,’ she said, adding ‘Honestly, there’s so many chills things I could tell you that have happened since like, her passing.’
Holly stressed that Darci was ‘not reckless’ and simply made what she called a ‘silly mistake.’
On the night she died, Darci had been out with friends and a man she was seeing at Manchester’s Warehouse Project.
In the dark of the nightclub, she poured powdered MDMA into her drink — likely unaware of how much she was adding. She soon began feeling unwell and apologised for ‘ruining everyone’s night’, but recovered briefly and returned to the dancefloor to film videos.
After stepping back into the crowd, Holly said Darci became paranoid, stopped recognising people, screamed, and then collapsed at the bar.
Paramedics brought her back from cardiac arrest within a minute and rushed her to Manchester Royal Infirmary.
She suffered a second arrest in A&E, where staff managed to resuscitate her again. A hospital brain scan subsequently delivered the devastating news that she was brain-dead.
Holly, whose phone was on silent, only learned what had happened when she reached the hospital in the early hours.
She noted that Holly had never taken crystal MDMA before and likely wasn’t aware how much she had poured into her drink.
In a interview with the Daily Mail after the tragic night, Holly said: ‘Her friends say she was always so sensible, she would never take a whole pill, she would take a quarter, and it was only at these kinds of events that she would do that.’
Holly described struggling to comprehend the finality of her sister’s death. ‘I cannot accept that she’s gone, and maybe it’s because she isn’t. So many things have happened that have shown she’s still around, still somewhere.’
She also urged young people to think twice before taking recreational drugs: ‘You might have taken drugs in the past and been sensible. She was not reckless. She just made a silly mistake in a dark nightclub.’
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