Tourist death could save lives
The family of a 20-year-old Australian savagely beaten on Myconos earlier this week decided yesterday to donate his organs after doctors declared Doujon Zammit dead three days after he was attacked on the island. The general director of the Henry Dunant hospital in Athens, Maria Kairi, told reporters at about 13.30 p.m. that the life support machine keeping Zammit, from Sydney, alive since he fell into a coma had been switched off. Doctors carried out a series of tests to establish if the 20-year-old was brain dead before his father, who had flown to Athens, gave the go ahead for his son to be taken off life support. «After his parents were informed, they decided to donate his heart to an Australian citizen hospitalized at the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center» said Kairi. «They have also accepted to donate the rest of his organs to save Greek people.» A few hours later, the 20-year-old’s father, Oliver, told reporters that he hoped donating his son’s heart would save someone else’s life. «I am hopeful that will help him and keep him alive,» he said, while adding that donating organs to Greek people would tie him to the country. «I hope this will help me and my family have a bond with Greece. His organs are here now.» Oliver Zammit said that he does not hold his son’s death against the country. «I don’t feel anger toward Greece. I feel anger toward the four people that took my son’s life.» A 25-year-old bouncer at the Tropicana club on Myconos’s Paradise Beach is the chief suspect in the inquiry into the attack on the tourist. Three other nightclub employees have also been arrested. They allegedly chased Zammit and three friends. An unidentified witness told television reporters that the 20-year-old’s head was rammed against a wall by his assailants. The 25-year-old was originally charged with aggravated assault but following Zammit’s death this is likely to be changed to manslaughter. The other three suspects have been charged with complicity.
