March 15, 2026 · 6:11 am

“Powerful” Organ Donation Book Translated into Arabic

An Arabic edition of The Nicholas Effect has been released, bringing one of the most powerful narratives in the history of organ donation to readers across the Arab world.

Written by Reg Green, the book tells the true story of his seven-year-old son Nicholas, who was killed when bandits shot at the family’s car during a trip to southern Italy, believing it carried valuables. Nicholas’ parents chose to donate their son’s organs, saving five lives and restoring the sight of two others and sparking a wave of awareness about organ donation around the world.

Reg Green with a copy of his book translated into Arabic

The Arabic translation was undertaken by Dr. Bassam Al-Darwish, a UAE-based health communication and media consultant and a long-standing advocate for prevention, public health awareness, and organ donation in the Arab region. He describes the book as “one of the most powerful stories ever told about organ donation.” 

Across the Arab world, home to more than 450 million people, organ donation rates remain significantly lower than in many Western countries. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of patients die each year from organ failure. The Arabic edition of The Nicholas Effect aims to help shift that reality by opening hearts, correcting misconceptions, and encouraging meaningful conversations within families The Arabic edition was discussed at the World Health Exhibition held at Expo City Dubai, in coordination with the UAE National Program for Organ Donation and Transplantation, “Hayat,” under the Ministry of Health and Prevention.

For inquiries: bassam@balsamone.com

The digital version will be released soon on major platforms.

Leave a comment

Filed under Reg Green's books, The Nicholas Effect, Useful tools

Tagged as , , , ,

January 18, 2026 · 3:11 am

Teenage Transplant Recipient Was Dying, Now She Expects To Be A Grandmother

     Thirty-one years ago, a 19-year old in Sicily, Maria Pia Pedala, who was in her final coma from liver failure, was saved from certain death by the liver of my seven-year old son, Nicholas (nicholasgreen.org.) In June she will become a grandmother! Her daughter, Alessia, who was born six years after the transplant, is pregnant.

     Maria Pia wrote in an email to an Italian friend, Andrea Scarabelli: “I want the Green family to know that the seed of love they planted many years ago continues to grow in the life of our family” She added that as she was writing she was crying with happiness because she never imagined that ‘the great gift’ could give her joy in so many ways.

     Maggie, my wife, and I donated Nicholas’ organs and corneas to seven very sick Italians after he was shot in a bungled robbery while we were on a family vacation in Italy in 1994. Maria Pia, his liver recipient, bounced back to health, married her childhood sweetheart, Salvatore, and four years after the transplant had a baby, a boy, whom they called Nicholas, and two years after that a girl, Alessia.  

Il Giorno article by Dario Crippa

The story was first reported in the Il Giorno newspaper, followed by Corriere della Sera, giving organ donation another upward push.

Il Corriere della Sera article

     We have met Maria Pia several times and always marvel at how healthy she is. She is a busy, hardworking housewife, up soon after five in the morning, makes the family meals, keeps a spotless home and does everything women of her age and in her neighborhood do. Generous-hearted as she is, she always talks of her gratitude to us — and Nicholas.

     Transplantation is a medical miracle, isn’t it?  As Pietro Gallo, founder of the Aido branch in Giussano commented, “Nicholas started a third generation though living only seven years!” 

Reg Green

Leave a comment

Filed under In the news, Italia, Italy, Nicholas' story, The Nicholas Effect

November 13, 2025 · 10:35 am

Organ Donation is “Universal”

“I’m often told organ donation is too remote a subject to interest the public, too depressing, too cold. It isn’t.” Reg Green. President of the Nicholas Green Foundation (nicholasgreen.org) said at the 2025 World Transplant Congress in San Francisco. “For one thing it’s one of the few subjects of any kind that has a truly universal range. Anyone might need a transplant, even a world-class athlete. 

Anyone might have to decide whether or not to donate a loved one’s organs.

And anyone might know someone on the waiting list who will die without a transplant.

That’s a lot of people and our message is important to all of them.

San Francisco (Wikipedia image)

Leave a comment

Filed under #reggreen, Events, Nicholas' story, Useful tools

Tagged as , , , ,

September 28, 2025 · 1:13 am

Yes, There Is Life After Death

To laymen like me, the practice of medicine can be magical: a pain is making life miserable, a doctor treats it, the pain subsides. But modern medicine also has a touch of the miraculous. Consider organ transplants where the body parts of someone who is dead are put into people who are dying and on average three or four healthy people come out of it. However many times that is done — and it is done nowadays as an everyday event in hospitals all over the world — it remains a medical miracle. I have seen it first hand.

     One beautiful night in Italy on the main highway from Naples to Sicily a car overtook us — a family of four from California on vacation — but instead of moving ahead, it stayed alongside and I said half to myself “There’s something wrong here.” Then through the night came savage, bloodcurdling yells telling us to pull over. 

     To obey would put us — my wife, Maggie, and our children, Nicholas aged seven and Eleanor, four — at their mercy so instead I accelerated. They accelerated too and the two cars raced side-by-side along the highway. Shots rang out, the windows disintegrated. Maggie, on the front seat, turned around to make sure the children were safe. Both appeared to be sleeping peacefully in their car seats. 

     By now, however, we were pulling away and the other car gradually faded back into the night. I raced on looking for somewhere with people, lights, some activity and a few miles later I saw there had been an accident with the police already there. I stopped and Eleanor woke immediately. But Nicholas didn’t move and, horrified, I saw his tongue was sticking out and there was a trace of vomit on his chin.

Two days later on October 1, 1994 (it seems like prehistory, doesn’t it?) the doctors at the University of Messina Polyclinic told us he was brain dead. We sat there silently, holding hands. I remember trying to grasp the thought that I would never again hear this gentle boy, eager to learn and full of fun, say “Goodnight, daddy.” 

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under #reggreen, Italia, Italy, Nicholas' story, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , ,

September 23, 2025 · 9:57 am

The fascinating stories behind 5 Bay Area monuments – The Children’s Bell Tower

From the San Juan Mercury News

Link: https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/18/the-fascinating-stories-behind-5-bay-area-monuments/amp/ 

The Children’s Bell Tower in Bodega Bay is decorated with bells from donors in Italy after 7-year-old Bodega Bay resident Nicholas Green was killed during an attempted carjacking while with his family in Italy. Green’s organ donations transformed the lives of seven people in Italy and his story boosted the cause of organ donation around the world. (Kate Bradshaw/Bay Area News Group)

(The tower was designed and built by San Francisco sculptor, Bruce Hasson)

Leave a comment

Filed under Bodega Bay, In the news, The Children's Bell Tower

Tagged as , , ,

July 6, 2025 · 5:17 am

Documentary: A Smash Hit

The response in Italy to the 90-minute documentary, Nicholas Effect, on RAI, the Italian national broadcasting system, about how Nicholas’ organs came to be donated and how that transformed Italy’s attitude, has been enormous in both the media and among the public.

Aldo Grasso, Italy’s unchallenged leader of television critics, writing in Corriere della Sera, said the Greens’ decision “cleared the taboo of organ donation in our country.” After 31 years, he added, the story “still sends shivers down the spine.”

     Effetto Nicholas, as it is called in Italian, was made by one of Italy’s foremost independent producers, Endemol, and can be seen in Italy on RAIPlay.

Reg Green

Leave a comment

Filed under Documentary about Nicholas, In the news, Italia, Italy, Nicholas' story, The Nicholas Effect, Useful tools

Tagged as , , , , ,

June 7, 2025 · 4:55 am

Reg Green is 96 but is still a Unique Organ Donation Activist

“You and your family have done more for organ donation than anyone else I know.” This quote from Professor Tom Starzl, ‘the father of transplantation,’ about Reg Green’s family comes in an article (see below) in the magazine TransplantNation (Vol.7, #2) by Matthew Gamelin, which raises the question: in the history of medicine how many cases are there of the death of a child still affecting life-and-death decisions in hospitals all over the world thirty years later?


Leave a comment

Filed under In the news, Nicholas' story, The Nicholas Effect

Tagged as ,

May 29, 2025 · 10:12 am

Children’s Drawings Spread the Nicholas Effect: ‘He is our Hero.’

‘My name is Simone and I’m Italian. I am a teacher in a primary school near Milan,’ an incoming email said. ‘I told Nicholas’ story to my students. They are 7 years old, the same age Nicholas was when he came to Italy.  Every child has created a drawing to honor Nicholas’ memory.’

      Newspapers, such as Corriere della Sera and Il Giorno, were charmed by the story of Simone Morano and his students at the Aldo Moro school in Seregno and sent the story all over Italy, encouraging other teachers to channel the idealistic wish of their young students to help other children who need help. Here are some of the drawings in which Simone’s students express that idealism.

Links:

https://www.ilgiorno.it/monza-brianza/cronaca/nicholas-green-bambini-primarie-cesano-maderno-donazione-organi-kpwiqkmq?live

https://www.ilgiorno.it/monza-brianza/cronaca/effetto-nicholas-green-i-disegni-65d415e7?live

(Photo by Piero Gallo)

Leave a comment

Filed under In the news, Italia, Italy, Useful tools

Tagged as , , ,

April 13, 2025 · 6:05 am

Major Italian TV documentary coming soon

RAI TV, the Italian state broadcaster, will show a brand-new 90-minute documentary on the Nicholas story sometime in the next few months. This is a major event in the nation’s continuing campaign to increase organ donation rates and will be seen by millions of viewers.

It was made for RAI by Endemol Shine Italy, one of Italy’s most highly-respected television production companies. Here is a link to the trailer (in Italian.)

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DIS-9QCMERW/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Rai2ufficiale/videos/1071269724906318

The documentary is expected to be subtitled in English for American audiences. More details later.

Leave a comment

Filed under Documentary about Nicholas, In the news, Italia, Italy, Nicholas' story

Tagged as , , , , , ,

December 9, 2024 · 10:18 am

“Let’s not let the flame lit by my son blow out”

Article published on ‘Il Corriere della Sera’, Italy

The recent anniversary of my seven-year-old son Nicholas Green’s organ donation—marking the 30th anniversary!—has stirred such profound emotions among Italians of every class, region, and creed that it’s essential not to let the power of the message carried by the media reports fade.

The number of articles published over the three days of events that my wife Maggie and I attended in Italy was “enormous.” I believe no other case in the history of organ donation has ever captured the world’s imagination in this way. The media coverage of the October 1st anniversary included dozens of important stories in major newspapers and on some of the most well-known TV and radio programs. The reach of the audience was incredible, as shown in the report by Andrea Scarabelli, the Italian spokesperson for the Nicholas Green Foundation. “The list of articles, reports, radio, and TV interviews is truly impressive. The volume was astonishing, but even more so was the quality, with all major Italian media outlets writing about us or even interviewing us. The quality refers not only to the media names present on the list but also to the content of almost every article.”

Corriere della Sera - Italy - Nov. 10 2024

Nicholas was struck by a bullet on the Salerno-Reggio Calabria highway and died on October 1, 1994. Maggie and I decided to donate his organs and corneas, which went to seven seriously ill Italians, four of whom were teenagers. This decision changed Italy’s attitude toward organ donation.

Media coverage is crucial in saving lives because, despite the admirable increase in donations in Italy—quadrupled compared to before Nicholas was killed—the percentage of Italians who say they do not want to donate remains stubbornly high. Unless this changes, people on the waiting list will continue to die in tragically high numbers.

This is not just a statement from a loving father. The most renowned name in transplant history, Professor Thomas Starzl of the University of Pittsburgh, widely regarded as “the father of modern transplantation,” wrote to my wife Maggie and me: “You and your family have done more for organ donation than anyone else I know. You can be certain that the interest will be great among those specifically involved in transplants and, in principle, by those seeking to better understand the essence of humanity.”

This was 26 years ago when we were only in the early stages of our campaign! What would Professor Starzl say now?

Reg Green

Leave a comment

Filed under 30th anniversary, In the news, Italia, Italy, Nicholas' story

Tagged as , ,