• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

During the hospital’s 1,000th heart transplant surgery in 2000, heart transplant team membe

Photo

The Greens look on as Rafael Gardunos rings a bell held by his cardiologist, Dr. Ajelos. The bell

Photo

Shot and killed at the age of seven while on a family vacation in Italy in 1994, Nicholas Green is remembered by local Italians as the boy whose death brought them life. After his death, Green’s parents donated his organs to Italian locals waiting for transplants.

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of Green’s death and his “Famed Gift of Life,” UCLA Transplant Services and OneLegacy – an organ donor and transplant network – honored the Green family last week at the UCLA Medical Center for donating their son’s organs and tissues. The California couple now devotes their time to encouraging families to donate the organs and tissues of their lost loved ones.

“The substance of the event was to acknowledge the Greens and their gift of life,” said UCLA alumnus Bryan Stewart, spokesperson for OneLegacy.

The Bell Memorial in Bodega Bay, in northern California, stands to acknowledge the boy who made the organ donations possible. When the wind blows from the coast through the bay, the 140 bells of the memorial ring in remembrance of Green. When Italy heard of the Greens’ act of altruism in the wake of their tragic loss, families and bell factories sent bells to the Greens in tribute, according to NicholasGreen.org. Now those bells hang and ring together in the Bell Memorial as a “symbol of the preciousness and fragility of young life,” Nicholas’ father Reg Green said.

UCLA Transplant Services and OneLegacy also presented a bell at the medical center ceremony that commemorated Green. The bell was rung to remind the Greens of the Bell Memorial they had to leave behind in their move to La Cañada.

Green’s parents, Reg and Maggie, decided to donate their son’s organs, tissues and corneas to the Italian hospital immediately after Green was pronounced brain-dead. The highway robbers who opened fire had thought the family’s rental car was carrying jewelry, wrote Reg in “A Child’s Legacy of Love”.

Before they returned to the hotel, the press had already heard of the Greens’ decision to donate Green’s organs. “It was a surprise how interested the Italians were about our story and our decision,” Maggie said.

More than just being interested, the Italian people were motivated. The Greens’ gift of life did not stop with just Green’s organ donations, but continued on with a 300 percent increase in organ donations and 400 percent increase in the signing of donor cards in Italy, said Dr. Robert Ettenger, chief of staff at the UCLA Medical Center.

This drastic increase in organ donations due to the Greens’ decision is now known as “the Nicholas effect.”

“The decision (to donate),” Maggie said, “was very simple for us, it could be more difficult for others.” She never regrets the decision because as a result of the decision, she sees that the transplant recipients are no longer sick and are completely healthy.

Rafael Gardunos, a transplant recipient who received a heart in June, no longer lives a life restrained by heart deformities. His doctor, Juan Alejos, a member of the UCLA transplant team who spoke at the commemoration, says Gardunos has recovered very well after a complicated surgery and only now is he able to do what regular 18-year-olds do.

“He was previously kept on a heart device which allowed him to walk, but the quality of his life was not normal.”

The regular wait for a heart is three years, Alejos explained, and sometimes, patients die waiting for a transplant. The picture is just as grim for kidney donations. “There are around 10,000 kidney donors, while there are 70,000 to 80,000 patients waiting for a kidney transplant,” Ettenger added.

American doctors and patients waiting for organ transplants are hoping that stories like the Greens’ will have the same “Nicholas effect” here as it did in Italy.

“We could double and triple donations and still not take care of the people we need to help. The sad thing is that the technology is here to help so many people, and where we are stymied is at the bottleneck of organ donations,” Ettenger added.

Underlying the bottleneck of organ donations are two common misconceptions that deter individuals from becoming organ donors. Most people believe there is a long process involved in expressing their intent to become an organ donor after death. And doctors say that many individuals forego signing the organ donor card because they fear receiving lower quality health care in a time of medical emergency.

But individuals over 18 can simply state their intent to donate their organs on their drivers’ licenses or print and fill out a organ donor card, according to the U.S. Health and Human Services Web site, while minors need parental or guardian consent. Perhaps the most difficult and important part of becoming an organ donor is discussing the decision with family and loved ones, the site states. More importantly, signing an organ donor card does not affect the health care that will be given. Every attempt will be made to save the donor’s life, and it is only after death and the family’s consent is obtained that a transplant team is contacted, according to the Health and Human Services Web site.

The number of organs donated and transplanted each year is well under the number of patients placed on the waiting list. And most patients cannot afford to wait. According to OneLegacy.org, approximately 17 people die each day while waiting for a life-saving organ.

The Greens are strengthened by their son’s death and pass along their perspective of saving lives to families all around the world, Stewart said. Reg is now committed to traveling around the United States, giving speeches and interviews to increase organ donations.

It may be difficult for families to cope with the loss and to donate a loved one’s organs, but to Maggie, the decision was simple: “I wanted to spare families from dealing with the same loss of a loved one that I had to undergo.”