Stephen Hawking’s Family Donates His Ventilator to a UK Hospital

The donation of the ventilator, which had been purchased by Hawking himself, was a gesture of gratitude to the hospital, for its years of caring for the famed physicist. “After our father passed away,” said Hawking’s daughter Lucy, “we returned all the medical equipment he used that belonged to the NHS but there were some items which he bought for himself. We are now passing them to the NHS in the hope they will help in the fight against COVID-19.”

The gesture comes at a time when the UK is in desperate need of ventilators, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson is calling on private industries to help with ventilator production.

Hawking had been diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset motor neuron disease at age 21 and died in March 2018 at the age of 76.