NAGC 49th Annual Convention - Denver, Colorado
Keynote: Reg Green

The following article is by Reg Green, father of Nicholas Green, the seven year-old California boy who was shot during a robbery while on a vacation with his family in Italy. Since then the Greens have funded the NAGC Nicholas Green Distinguished Student Awards which, through NAGC and its state affiliates are available to an outstanding student in every state. Mr. Green was a Keynote speaker at the NAGC 49th Annual Convention held in Denver, Colorado October 30 - November 3, 2002.

The Boy Who Saved Thousands Of Lives

To us Nicholas was a magical creature who brought sunshine into every day. His teacher said he was the most giving child she had ever met and that she always knew he was her teacher. But Nicholas was killed eight years ago and every morning when I wake I know life will never have the sparkle that it once did. In all that time, however, Maggie, my wife, and I have never had a moment’s doubt about the decision we took to donate his organs.

When we met the seven recipients and their families, the relief on those careworn faces told us all we needed to know. There was the boy of 15, who had had five operations on his heart, all of which had failed. The mother who had never seen her baby’s face clearly. The keen sportsman who could no longer see his children play games. The two youngsters who had spent years hooked up to kidney dialysis machines, four hours a day, three days a week, missing school, missing childhood and gradually becoming aware that they would probably never become adults. The diabetic whose entire nervous system was disintegrating, who was going blind and couldn’t walk without help. And the beautiful 19-year old Sicilian who, on the day Nicholas died, was in a final coma caused by liver failure.

On that day these people were just statistics to us. But knowing them as we do now, and having seen the agony they have gone through, if we had shrugged off their troubles as none of our concern, I don’t think we could ever have looked back without a deep sense of shame.

Most people, I suspect, have no idea, as we didn’t, of the power they have at that moment over the life and death of families just like their own. The average decision to donate produces three or four organs, as well as tissue, such as heart valves, bone to prevent amputations, corneas to stop blindness and skin to cure painful burns. In effect, a family faced with that decision can save several other families from devastation or, alternatively, condemn them to a lifetime of sorrow. With that much at stake I often wonder what possible debate there can be about what is the right thing to do.

Eight years later all seven of Nicholas’ recipients are alive and most of them have never been healthier. Just the other day I realized with a tremor that they have now had his organs longer than he had. The two who were going blind can see clearly. The two young kidney patients each grew a foot in height in one year. The diabetic, once completely dependent on others, is still ravaged by the after-effects of that brutal affliction, nevertheless has an apartment of her own for the first time in her life. The boy, whose own heart couldn’t have lasted much longer and at one time could scarcely walk from one room to another, now looks like any other boy with another boy’s heart inside him. And, finally, a year after the doctors had given up all hope, Maria Pia, the 19-year old, was married and two years later had a baby -- a boy whom they have called Nicholas.

Although it seemed so obvious to us, our decision took Italy by storm. The prime minister asked to see us, the president of Italy flew us home in his own aircraft and an honor guard brought Nicholas’ body home in a military aircraft. Streets, schools and the largest hospital in Italy have been named for him.

And, astonishingly, the effect continues. In those eight years organ donation rates in Italy have almost tripled so that literally thousands of people are alive today who would have died. Every day we get letters and emails from across the world, which show that people are still being influenced by his story. What a confirmation it is that at every moment of every day any one of us can make a difference.

This is not a controversial subject. Ninety percent of people in this country say they would donate the organs of a loved one if faced with the choice and every major religion favors it too. Yet the shortage is so acute that one in six children on the waiting list dies because no organ arrives in time. There are many reasons why people do not follow through on their good intentions but a crucial one is that at the worst moment of their lives they are called upon to make a major, irrevocable decision there and then about something they’ve never thought about seriously.

It’s here that teachers have a unique role to play. Transplantation is a basic element in modern health care, with a substantial body of knowledge underlying it in a variety of fields: biological, medical, social, literary, ethical. It can be taught as part of science or civics or health or writing or anywhere where moral decisions are involved.

It’s a subject that, time and again, I’ve seen call forth the idealism in children. Through our family foundation, we’ve made videos that have been received with rapt attention in schools in every region of this country and we’d be happy to make up to a hundred copies available for teachers who would use them in the classroom. I’m ready to talk at teachers’ conferences whenever there is interest. Many of you will have seen the television movie of our story, “Nicholas’ Gift,” starring Jamie Lee Curtis, which is available now in DVD. That too has been shown to great effect in selected schools. Better still, it’s a subject in which any of you can get help from the federally-approved transplant bodies which exist in every state. If you’d like us to start the ball rolling for you on any of these ideas, please contact us at green@nicholasgreen.org.

Let me remind you what’s at stake. A nurse told me that one night she was on duty when a small boy was brought in dying from a road accident. When the time came she took a deep breath and asked the parents if they would donate. They refused, angrily, at what they saw as a crass intrusion on these sacred moments. But all she could think of was that on the third floor of that same hospital was another little boy, of just about the same age, and with parents very like these, who was also dying that night, and did die, because the heart that could have saved him never arrived. I often think of that little boy and how close he came to being saved and how he probably would have been saved if only someone – a friend, a doctor, a teacher – had talked to him or his family about organ donation while death was still a distant concept.

Transplantation goes beyond surgery to a basic human truth. Because the donor family has no idea where the organs are going, the process leaps over all the normal barriers between us. White men are walking around with black women’s hearts inside them -- and vice versa; Asians are breathing through Hispanic lungs -- and vice versa; and – dare I say it? – Democrats see the world through Republican corneas -- and vice versa. It’s the ultimate in diversity. What more vivid illustration could there be that what divides us as people is trifling compared with what we have in common?

There’s a story I like to tell about Nicholas, who loved tales of valor and honorable deeds. A few days before he died we played a game with him in which he was a famous Roman soldier going home after years of service on the frontiers. When you get to Rome, we told him, poems will be written about you, children will cheer your name, you’ll be given a gold medal.

It was only a game. But it all came true. With this difference: that Nicholas won, not by the force of arms, but by the power of love. And that, of course, is much more stronger.

The Greens’ Web site is http://www.nicholasgreen.org For further information please contact Karol Scher via email at kscher@nagc.org

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