A girl from Hanoi who wanted to donate her corneas died on Monday after having suffered a rare disease for her entire lifetime.

Nguyen Van Nhi had just finished her sixth grade. She was spending her summer-vacation days but never studied in the next level.

The 12-year-old went brain-dead on Sunday and died the following morning after sinking into a coma over eight days.

Nhi was diagnosed with a rare medical condition called laryngeal papillomatosis, in which benign tumors form along the respiratory tract, at the age of one.

Living with the disease for 11 years, Nhi neither cried nor complained of pain whenever she underwent an operation or received an injection.

She and her family wanted to give her corneas to those in need after her death.

“She wished to become a doctor after visiting the hospital on many occasions. And she desired to treat herself and the community,” said Hai Van, Nhi’s mother.

“Nhi’s very keen on dancing and like any other girls, loved pink and ripe mangoes, which are soft and easy to eat.”

By the afternoon of the day she passed away, technicians from the Central Eye Hospital in Hanoi had harvested the donor’s corneas, which are expected to be transplanted into two out of a waiting list of around 1,000 people with partial or complete visual impairment.

This is the third case of cornea donation from children noted since the Eye Bank was founded, according to Nguyen Huu Hoang, the department’s director.

The first came from a six-year-old child, and the second from a girl aged seven in February.

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