Sweet Little Baby Dying & In Desperate Need of New Heart. Finds Miracle with Perfect Match
A Florida family is praising God for restoring health to their baby girl, Lucia Torres, who desperately needed a new heart. Faith, prayer, family and strong community support have gotten the Torres family through this emotional season of life.
Baby Lucia was born on Dec. 8, 2017, with a heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The abnormal thickening of the heart muscle was detected prior to her birth, but the severity of the condition was unknown until after Lucia was born.
Lucia’s parents, Annie and Victor Torres, live in Naples, Florida. Their lives have been turned upside down since Lucia was born so sick, but they have clung to their hope in God.
“We don’t say ‘if,’ we say ‘when’ she gets a heart transplant,” 31-year-old Annie Torres told Naples Daily News in April. “We have to have a positive mindset.”
Annie’s sister, Liz Vargas, has been the driving force behind fundraising and organizing prayer groups on behalf of her baby niece. So far, she has helped raise $65,000 dollars on behalf of baby Lucia.
“All we can do is pray,” said Vargas, who works as a dental hygienist in Naples. “We are just believing in the power of prayer.”
The Torres family received a phone call the day after Mother’s Day that a heart was available for baby Lucia. It was a day of celebration mingled with sorrow knowing that another family was grieving the loss of their baby on that day.
“For us, it was not coincidence,” Vargas said with confidence. “It was providence.”
Lucia had been on the transplant list since March 1. She was too sick to wait at home; rather, Lucia spent her days at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, fighting to stay alive.
One day after receiving the phone call, Lucia got her miracle heart transplant. “It was a perfect heart,” a thankful Vargas expressed.
The Torres family has been wrapped in support from the community, who are continuing to fundraise and pray for Lucia. Teachers at Annie’s school, where she teaches Kindergarten, donated their paid time off so the mother could stay at the hospital with Lucia.
“Our family mourns for the family that had to lose their baby, but we will not let that be taken for granted,” Vargas wrote on the family’s fundraising page.
“I know for a fact that God has big plans for our Braveheart and we all look forward to seeing what the future holds.”
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