One Family’s Tragic Loss Prompted Widespread Interest in Organ Donation

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Los Angeles Times, Corinne Purtill, September 24, 2024: 30 years later, a family’s loss gives life to others

An excerpt:

For the Green family, the memory of Oct. 1, 1994 is many things at once: the date of their greatest pain and their finest hour; a day of unspeakable loss and life-giving gifts.

It is the date their 7-year-old son, Nicholas, died in an Italian hospital, two days after being shot during an attempted robbery on a family vacation from California…

Seven people, five of them teenagers, received Nicholas’ corneas, kidneys, liver, heart and pancreas. The family’s story prompted a surge in interest that continues to drive new donor registrations in Italy…

At the time, Italy had one of the lowest organ donation rates in Western Europe. The Greens’ decision, along with the awful circumstances of the boy’s death, led to a swell of media attention across Italy…The year before Nicholas’ death, 6.2 people per million in Italy donated their organs. Ten years later, as the story circulated and the numbers of parks, playgrounds and streets in Italy named after Nicholas grew, the number had tripled to nearly 20 people per million…

Over the years, members of the family have made dozens of trips to Italy to speak on behalf of organ donation and to check in on the people whose lives were saved by their loss…five are still living. His liver recipient, who was 19 at the time of the transplant, went on to marry and have children. The Greens have met her eldest son. His name is Nicholas.

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