Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres granted would-be lung transplant patient Hélène Campbell’s wish Thursday
morning by talking about organ donation, but went a step further with a
surprise interview via Skype from her set in Los Angeles.

Campbell was so overwhelmed from the surprise that she had to ask her mom to increase the flow of her oxygen tank to help her breathing.

The 20-year-old left her Barrhaven home with her mother in January to wait for a double lung transplant. She has idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and only has 24 per cent of her lung capacity left.

She started an organ donation awareness campaign last month through social media and singer Justin Bieber was one of the first celebrities to support her by tweeting #BeAnOrganDonor and beadonor.ca to his more than 16 million followers on Twitter.

DeGeneres, an organ donor herself, caught on to her viral campaign and helped spread the word during the interview. She told her viewers that they can visit her website to learn how to become an organ donor.

Although Campbell couldn’t appear on the show, Degeneres gave her tickets to the premiere of The Hunger Games film in Toronto. She also invited her and mother to appear on the show after she receives a transplant.

“I’d love to hang out with you backstage and we are going to dance together,” DeGeneres said on the show. “You’re an amazing, amazing young woman.”