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My son died in 1994 but his heart only stopped beating this year
- barking 10y agoI remember that from when it happened, it was widely reported at the time, even in the UK. Hard to believe that it's 30 years ago now. Edit: Sorry, Nicholas was born 30 years ago, it was 23 years ago when he died.
- sdiq 10y agoHumanity at its best: Your son gets killed in a foreign country and, rather than being angry with the people of that country for producing some murderers, you actually help seven other families with organs from your now dead son. And, the family (or is it just the father) still come back to the same country to celebrate with the children who received the donated organs. I salute that family.
- cavanasm 10y agoIt's interesting too, because in many countries, there's VERY strict patient confidentiality that would prevent the family of the donor from ever meeting recipients.
- dpark 10y agoIf both parties agree to meet, doctors can enable that, even in countries with strong patient protection laws. People in the US do this sometimes, too.
- jscheel 10y agoWow, that's amazing that they were so willing to try and help others. However, reading this 7 days before I take my 4 year old and twin 1 year olds to Italy was not the best timing on my part.
- trumbitta2 10y agoJust stay (sadly) away from Sicilia, Campania, Calabria, Puglia. Edit to avoid misinterpretation and backlash: those are the 4 regions (out of 20) where the Mafias (Cosa Nostra, 'Ndrangheta, Camorra, Sacra Corona Unita) kill the most.
- nolok 10y agoIf he comes from anywhere other than the EU (and even then, depends where), Italy, or even Sicily in particular, is much safer regarding murder rates. Italy is super safe. If you or him wants more details, numbers etc ... They're all readily available, but even a quick glance at these two maps tells the story: World by country level: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Map_of_world_by_intentional_homicide_rate-fixplcz.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Map_of_w... (Yes, Italy is safer than Canada or Australia) Europe by regional level: https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/europe-map-of-homicide-rates-subnational-lebel-unodc-png.png https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/europe... So yes, even in the few parts of Italy that aren't scoring perfect, the murder rate is as dangerous as visiting the french south east coast, or visiting Scotland, or even north Germany. Not exactly hell of earth.
- kbart 10y agoYou are still much more likely to die in a traffic accident in these regions than get murdered. By most standards (even Western European ones) these regions are still very safe, so I don't see any reasons why you should avoid them. Furthermore, Italian mafia, unlike some movies like you to believe, usually don't kill for fun - most of the related murders are targeted killings of rivals, witnesses, debtors, investigators etc.
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- VMG 10y agoHN title is confusingly incomplete
- AlphaWeaver 10y agoYeah the title is a little clickbaity...
- ziikutv 10y agoThe article title is almost identical too.
- happy-go-lucky 10y agoBBC edited it shortly afterwards :)
- anton_gogolev 10y agoOn a somewhat related note, I highly recommend listening to "Gray's Donation" (http://www.radiolab.org/story/grays-donation/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/grays-donation/). It is an extraordinary episode.
- wyldfire 10y agoStarted listening and I recall having heard most of this one in the car. Great story.
- dankohn1 10y agoYou don't need to have someone die to create a life-giving chain of organ donations. Take a look at: Why I gave my kidney to a stranger — and why you should consider doing it too https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/4/11/12716978/kidney-donation-dylan-matthews https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/4/11/12716978/ki...
- sdpy 10y agoThere was a story in Eastern Europe just recently: a 20-year-old guy desperately needed money and sold his kidney for $15k so that he could marry his girlfriend. He died a few weeks later.
- Chris2048 10y agoI'm not too sure about the "life hours gained" numbers. Where do they subtract the risk of death on the table?
- easilyBored 10y agoWow, very gutsy. Donating has its risks, after all there's a reason we have two, when only one does the job. I know a person who donated one kidney to his son and was told to essentially change his lifestyle at least when it came to physical work.
- dankohn1 10y agoIt is cool that donors automatically go to the top of the donation list if they need a kidney in the future.
- selectodude 10y agoI mean, they paid into the system and went from 2 to 1 to zero kidneys. Seems fair to me.
- Bluestrike2 10y agoYes it is. It certainly helps ameliorate the long-term risks of complications associated with becoming a living kidney donor. While those risks aren't massive, they're certainly enough to make people pause. Anything that can lessen those fears can only help. http://khn.org/news/what-happens-when-a-living-kidney-donor-needs-a-transplant/ http://khn.org/news/what-happens-when-a-living-kidney-donor-...
- TheCycoONE 10y agoMy own son had his eye saved by an organ donor when he was an infant. We live in Canada which is still opt in so someone made the decision that they wanted to give up a part of themselves after they died. For that I am grateful.
- dsacco 10y agoThat's inspiring. If you don't mind divulging more details, can you tell us how your son's eye was saved? Do you mean they transplanted an entire eye, or was there a critical part of the eye donated by someone else? Also interested if your son has heterochromia as a result. I'd imagine that's the case if there was substantial change to the original iris?
- LeifCarrotson 10y agoEye transplants are usually corneal transplants - just the clear lens in front of the iris and pupil is replaced. It's not currently possible to transplant an entire eye, as a lot of nerves would need to be re-connected.
- TheCycoONE 10y agoThey transplanted tissue on top of the eye as part of implanting an Ahmed valve. My son has primary congenital glaucoma. There is no obvious signs like heterochromia, the entire transplant and most of the valve is between his eye muscles.
- earlyriser 10y agoI'm in Quebec and it's also opt in here, probably is pancanadian setup. Do you know why is opt in and not opt out like in other countries. What's the thing blocking this? Do you know if there's an organization making pressure to make it opt out? I'm asking you because I'm guessing you're familiar with transplant topics.
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- magic_beans 10y agoI'm amazed that Reg has 21 year old twin daughters at age 88! I'm sure raising kids at 60 will keep a man young.
- mdjt 10y agoThat was a really nice and touching story to start off my Friday. Thanks for sharing!
- nom 10y agoI want to raise awareness that you don't have donate an organ to save lives. Blood cancer patients all over the world are frantically looking for bone marrow and blood cell donors. The chances for a match are very low, but if they find one the chances of success are high. So you can understand the desperation. The thing is, an actual bone marrow extraction is only required in 10% of all cases, most of the time you only have to donate blood cells. It's painless and pretty much non-intrusive. Check out https://www.dkms.de/en https://www.dkms.de/en or https://bethematch.org/ https://bethematch.org/ for more information about the subject. Costs for the match test are unfortunately not covered by health insurance here in Germany, but it's only 30€ or something in that order. If you ever wanted to save a life, get tested.
- tobz 10y agoCan confirm: this is an incredibly low-barrier-to-entry thing. I'm a U.S. citizen, so I signed up with Be The Match. Four cheek swabs that they send you in the mail. Swab your cheeks, package them up, send them back. I got notified that I was a preliminary match just five months after signing up. Sadly, I wasn't a full match (hopefully someone else was!) after going through the blood draw. All in all, it cost me nothing monetarily and maybe 3 hours total between questionnaires and the blood draw when I got matched.
- treehau5 10y agoI only worry about the drugs they have you take prior to increase your blood cell production
- nom 10y agoWhy? Others are donating a whole kidney or parts of their liver etc, which is much riskier. Compared to that, taking some drugs for short time to increase blood cell production sounds tame. I'd rather worry about the bone marrow donation. Once you sign up, you potentially have to give bone marrow or have to live with the fact that you could've saved someones life, but didn't.
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- corndoge 10y agoThe world does not need more children. Having children is selfish. No offense but you should have considered the world you forced your kids to live in before reproducing.
- nsxwolf 10y agoEvery time I see a comment like yours I have another kid.
- penpapersw 10y agoIf your parents felt the same way, you wouldn't have been born to enjoy all the good things you enjoyed in life so far.
- corndoge 10y agoNot all of us have good lives. Not all of us enjoy life. Better not to begin; once begun, better to finish.
- penpapersw 10y agoI've felt the same way all too often in the past. In my experience, gratitude is the best cure. Being grateful for hot showers, for tasty food, for a good night's sleep, for anything good or enjoyable really, these have really helped me to change my perspective so that I do enjoy life, I recommend trying it to anyone feeling that way.
- Retric 10y agoUS and most of the developed world are already below replacement rate. So having or not having kids is less of an issue than you might think.
- easilyBored 10y agoUh, huh. I am a very selfish person. By definition, it runs in the family
- sctb 10y ago
- redxblood 10y agoWow, what a clickbait.
- jannotti 10y agoThat's the power of defaults. Italy changed to an opt-out program for donation, rather than opt-in.
- itsmemattchung 10y agoWhat a well written article. Half way through reading it, my eyes started to swell up with tears ... the image of the father, who was driving the car, turning around to see his son, just sleeping moments before, now laying there dead with a bullet through his head.
- donretag 10y ago"Andrea Mongiardo, 22 years following the transplant of American seven-year-old Nicholas Green’s heart in 1994, has died aged 37 of lymphoma" http://www.italianinsider.it/?q=node/4998 http://www.italianinsider.it/?q=node/4998
- Rebelgecko 10y agoI had the opportunity to see Nicholas's parents speak a few years ago, and their talk convinced me to opt in as an organ donor. When I first got my driver's license, I had opted out of more or less out of spite— the CA DMV's form seemed intentionally misleading, which bothered me. I suppose it still bothers me, but it changed my mind to hear firsthand about the impact that my body could have when I'm done with it.