A brave little girl from China is being hailed as a hero after she saved her mother’s life by donating bone marrow to her.

Ling Ling is a 7 year-old girl from the Chinese city of Shaoxing who went through a four hour operation to save her critically ill mother. Li Yueye, 30, was diagnosed with acute aplastic anaemia back in May. This is a very rare disorder in which the bone marrow fails to make enough blood cells.

Doctor’s warned that Li’s condition would likely get worse over time and that she needed to undergo a stem cell transplant as soon as possible in order to survive. Since Li was adopted, finding a bone marrow match was difficult for her family.

Li’s birth parents abandoned her when she was a baby, and though her husband tracked them down, they refused to donate to her. That left Ling as the only possible match to save her mother.

When Li’s husband asked Ling if she would be willing to donate, the little girl said yes with no hesitation. Doctors at the Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital of Zhejiang Province harvested 200ml bone marrow from Ling Ling in about four hours, and they marveled at how strong and cooperative the child was.

Ling’s grandmother said that she was heartbroken that her granddaughter had to go through this.

“This breaks my heart. My granddaughter is so little. But this is for her mother to get better,” she said.

God bless this little girl for doing whatever it took to save her mother’s life!