Reg Green

Reg Green is the father of Nicholas Green, a seven-year-old California boy who was shot in Italy in a botched robbery in 1994. The decision by Reg and his wife, Maggie, to donate his organs and corneas led to a worldwide increase in awareness of the shortage of donors. As part of their ongoing campaign to raise awareness, the Greens have produced videos, written articles, spoken at numerous meetings and been interviewed by the media around the world. Actors Jamie Lee Curtis and Alan Bates starred in a made-for-television movie, Nicholas' Gift, based on the family's story. Reg, who was born in Britain in 1929, was a feature writer and reporter for the London Daily Telegraph, the London Times and the Guardian. He has written two books on organ and tissue donation, The Nicholas Effect and The Gift that Heals. The Greens have an 18-year-old daughter, Eleanor, and 12-year-old twins, Laura and Martin. They live in La Canada, California. Reg appeared on the radio show “Healing the Grieving Heart” with Dr. Gloria & Dr. Heidi Horsley to discuss “Stories of Loss, Healing and Hope.” To hear Reg being interviewed on this show, go to the following link: https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/30789/stories-of-loss-healing-and-hope

Articles:

From Threat to Sign of Hope

It was soon after dawn on the San Rafael Hills and I was on my own, when I saw looming out of the thick mist a lone figure. Luckily his back was toward me and for a split-second I wondered whether to creep away. I realized it wasn’t a man at all, but a cutout figure of one. But not just any man. A long, lean, dangerous man. And not just any long, lean, dangerous man, but Clint Eastwood. And he was in a smoldering pose made famous by “A Fistful of Dollars.” He stood there on the crest of […]

Spending Valentine’s Day in the Saint’s Birthplace

My memory of Valentine’s Day is spending it among the art treasures and history of St. Valentine’s birthplace, Terni, in central Italy. It was just a few months after our seven-year-old son, Nicholas, had been shot in a botched car-jacking attempt while we were driving to Sicily on vacation. We had donated his organs and corneas to seven Italians, four of them teenagers. The organizers of our visit wanted to honor the power of love and chose to see it in our story. The ceremony was held in a packed hall and, whenever Nicholas was mentioned, there was total, almost […]

Death, and Hope, in the Middle East

By Reg Green — When the doorbell rang in John Boria’s house in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, on August 31, 2004, and he saw three National Guard Air Force colonels standing there, his first thought was that they had come to the wrong address. The second, a moment later, came with sickening force. “Has something happened to my son?” he asked. Yes, they told him, something has happened. The Boria’s elder son, Capt. John Javier ‘Javy’ Boria, a 29-year-old Air Force pilot, had been injured in an off-duty accident in an all-terrain vehicle he was driving in Qatar, where he was […]

Natasha Richardson’s Family Donates Her Organs, Honors Her Life

By Reg Green — Natasha Richardson’s heart-wrenching death from a skiing accident should explode at least one myth: that donating the organs of a loved one is in some way disrespectful. It’s clear that her family made their decision out of love and that, by helping others, her stature has been enhanced not diminished. And that is true of all those other decisions to donate made by anonymous families in lonely hospital rooms around the world. They allow the doctors to take the body parts of someone they love, not because they don’t care any more but because they feel […]

Film Review: Nicholas’ Gift

By Reg Green — It may seem like the ultimate in narcissism, but my choice for best grief film is a TV movie that was made about my own family. It is called “Nicholas’ Gift” and is the story of how, on a vacation in Italy, our seven-year-old son, Nicholas, was shot in an attempted carjacking and how we donated his organs and saved many lives. Jamie Lee Curtis played my wife, Maggie. Alan Bates was me. The director was Robert Markowitz, whose long list of titles includes “Tuskegee Airmen,” a TV movie about the first African-American air squadron in […]

Nurse Dispels Myths about Transplantation

By Reg Green — Although Charlette Thompson has looked after cardiac patients in intensive care units in Lexington, Kentucky, hospitals since the 1980s, she has never become accustomed to sudden death. After all these years there is shock in her voice when she describes it. “They’d be looking at you, talking to you, and the next second, the very next second, they’d be gone.” Charlette went into the ICU by choice. “I wanted to take care of the sickest patients,” she says. “But seeing so many deaths made me want to do more than keeping the dying comfortable.” About that […]

Organ Donation and St. Valentine’s Hometown

By Reg Green — My memory of Valentine’s Day is spending it among the art treasures and history of St. Valentine’s birthplace, Terni, in central Italy. It was just a few months after our seven-year-old son, Nicholas, had been shot in a botched car-jacking attempt while we were driving to Sicily on vacation. We had donated his organs and corneas to seven Italians, four of them teenagers. The organizers of our visit wanted to honor the power of love and chose to see it in our story. The ceremony was held in a packed hall and, whenever Nicholas was mentioned, […]

Organ Donation Eases Survivors’ Pain

By Reg Green —

Parent of Organ Donor Treated Like Royalty

By Reg Green — Recently, in the restaurant of a Northern Italian hotel, someone in our group told the waiter I was the father of a seven-year-old California boy who was shot in a bungled robbery while we were on vacation in Italy in 1994. From a nearby table, a voice said “Ah, Nicholas.” Tables around the room took up the theme until it became a topic of general conversation. It speaks volumes that a boy, and a foreigner at that, who was killed fourteen years ago can still bring a roomful of strangers together. It’s true the circumstances were […]