Wakefield family’s plea for kidney donor to help teenager Lucas

Lucas Burrows, 14, was diagnosed with dense deposits disease, a rare and aggressive condition affecting the kidney, in December 2022.

Since then his life has been turned upside down and the formerly active teenager requires a dialysis machine to live.

His family and friends have all tested to donate but every avenue has been unsuccessful.

Dad Dan has issued a heartfelt plea to the public for a hero to come forward so Lucas might be able to live a normal life for years to come.

Mr Burrows said: "He's a prisoner in his own bedroom. The machine is keeping him alive but it's taking away every freedom he could have as a 14-year-old.

“He is literally tethered with a 2m wire. It is like being a 2m cell.

"It's horrible because he was incredibly healthy and active, and would always be out doing something. He wouldn't just sit in his room.”

Lucas spent January to March last year in St James' Hospital in Leeds before developing posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES), another rare condition in which parts of the brain are affected by swelling.

He was in a coma for two weeks and had to undergo two brain surgeries.

Mum Lucy, who runs a theatre school out of Wakefield Sports Club, said the chance of having both conditions was around one in 60 million.

Mr Burrows, a teacher at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, said he wished he was able to give a kidney to Lucas.

He said: “You feel a bit like a failure when you can’t do something other parents have been able to do – we didn’t want a stranger to have to do it.

“Lucas is a bright boy with everything going for him and it’s been cruelly snatched away.

“He's usually has a positive outlook but when he doesn’t that’s what really gets me. I don't want him thinking ‘what's the point?’.”

A living kidney donor for Lucas would need to be blood type O and healthy.

Contact [email protected].