‘Like watching a miracle’: Infant breathing on her own after life-saving double lung transplant

RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT/Gray News) - An infant is successfully breathing on her own for the first time in her life.

Kylie Overfield was born with an extremely rare genetic lung condition called surfactant protein B deficiency.

Infants diagnosed with the disease often do not survive past 5 months without a life-saving double lung transplant.

Kylie’s family moved to Houston earlier this year for treatment at Texas Children’s Hospital, one of the few hospitals in the country equipped to perform the surgery.

For months, her family waited, hoped and prayed.

A week after Kylie turned 5 months old, word came that doctors finally had a donor match.

On April 17, Kylie’s life changed forever and in the best way possible.

“It was like watching a miracle in real-time,” Kylie’s mother, Ashley Overfield, said.

Doctors in Houston spent 12 hours operating on Kylie, first stopping her heart to repair some small holes.

Next, they had to carefully remove Kylie’s lungs, replacing them with the donor’s lungs by stitching together a 3-centimeter opening.

“It was one of the hardest days of my life in good and bad ways,” Overfield said. “Because saying goodbye to your child and knowing that you might not see them again, that was so scary. I was terrified. I was shaking. I didn’t sleep the whole night.”

But Overfield said she will never forget the moment doctors told her everything went well.

“That was a good feeling,” the mother said.

Dr. David Moreno McNeill is Kylie’s pulmonologist at Texas Children’s Hospital. He has been with her since she arrived in January and will continue to monitor her care for the rest of her life.

“Kylie has definitely beat the odds, and we want to continue like that,” Moreno McNeill said. “We want to continue like that. We want to continue keeping her healthy.”

And she continues to defy the odds.

“Twenty-four hours after surgery, she sat up for the first time,” Overfield said. “And they said they’ve never had a patient sit up that soon after surgery.”

Moreno McNeill added, “She’s spunky. She’s a baby that, you know, she’s the boss.”

The doctor said that thanks to the donor’s sacrifice, baby Kylie is able to live a happy, healthy life and breathe all on her own.

“Organ donation is incredibly important, and it really changes lives,” Moreno McNeill said. “It really gives a wonderful gift to families that would otherwise lose a child.”

There are currently more than 17,000 people who follow Kylie’s Lung Transplant Journey on Facebook.

“A lot of people have messaged us and told us that watching Kylie has got them back in church has made them believe in God again,” Overfield said. “It’s really amazing to be able to see God use Kylie. It’s always been the best thing about this whole thing is, watching God use her.”