A Kiwi teacher who recently moved to Melbourne says Australian Customs "scared the s**t out of me" after stopping her at the airport due to an "odd object" in her bag.
Agents interrogated her after she said she was carrying her old heart in her luggage.
Jessica Manning, 30, was born with multiple heart defects. After a heart and liver transplant five years ago, she donated her organs to medical science.
But 10 months after her transplants, she was asked if she wanted her heart back - an option available due to the belief among most iwi Māori that one's body or body parts should be returned to Papatūānuku, or the earth, after death.
Manning held onto her old heart, hoping to one day bury it in the backyard of her first home, according to Yahoo News. It's stored in a vacuum-sealed bag filled with formaldehyde to preserve it.
She said she was interrogated at Melbourne Customs after revealing she had an "odd object" in her luggage.
In a TikTok video, she said she didn't declare her old heart because there was no option on the arrival declaration card for human remains - only animal parts.
"I'm going to tell them anyway," she said in the video.
Melbourne Customs staff were shocked.
"I've never experienced something like this before," said the first agent Manning spoke with.
She didn't want to throw it out in order for her and her partner to move to Australia, so she took the risk.
But the Customs "boss" told her she couldn't bring the organ through, and will "need to bin it".
"That's when I started crying... I was so incredibly tired, I just had to say goodbye to everyone in New Zealand," she said.
"They were more worried that my heart had some disease in it that I could bring into the country, which is why they needed documentation to state that it doesn't have a disease, or that it's not a threat."
Customs "finally" let her through, after inspecting the sealed heart, along with her medical documents.
"Anyway, the heart is safe and sound. It's at the top of my wardrobe, the usual, but it scared the s**t out of me, and I was not going to leave security without my heart."
Manning isn't the only Kiwi to have moved across the ditch recently.
According to Stats NZ/Tatauranga Aotearoa, 81,200 New Zealand citizens moved overseas in the year to April - a new record.
Kiwis are the fourth-largest immigrant community in Australia, according to Australia's Bureau of Statistics.
