Parents of Middle Schooler Killed in Accident Donate Her Organs

Nov. 23, 2011— -- Skateboarding was one of young Niyale Johnson's beloved hobbies. That's exactly what the middle-schooler was doing two weeks ago with a couple of friends in her Asheville, N.C. home when her father heard a terrible scream.

Niyale fell through a plate of glass. She was cut but conscious, and her father took her to the hospital.

Her parents didn't panic, because she seemed fine. But suddenly, her mother told ABC affiliate WLOS, things went very wrong.

A piece of glass pierced one of her heart valves and got stuck in her spine. She never regained consciousness after surgery, and after 11 days, her parents took her off life support and decided to donate their dead daughter's organs, a heartbreaking choice they never thought they would face.

"You make decisions on what they should eat, and just -- what they should wear, and you go from that to should I donate my child's organs," Niyale's father, Demetrius McGee, told WLOS.

But their daughter loved to help people, and it was in that spirit that Niyale's parents made their decision.

"That's what she would have wanted, because she's a helper. That's what she always does. She helped everybody."

And according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, there are more than 110,00 people nationwide waiting for organ transplants who could benefit from the family's generosity. The American Academy of Pediatrics said in a 2010 study that 2 to 3 percent of those individuals on transplant waiting lists are children younger than 17.

Although the need is tremendous, most parents never think they will have to ever consider donating their child's organs. When faced with the unexpected death of a child, having to confront such a difficult choice can be overwhelming.

Reg Green is another father who knows the pain of losing a child very suddenly and facing the decision about whether to donate organs while dealing with shock and grief at the same time.

In a case that made international headlines, Green's 7-year-old son, Nicholas, was killed during an attempted robbery in 1994 while the family was on vacation in Italy. After he was shot, he was on life support for two days.

"During that time, neither I nor my wife even thought of organ donation," Green said. "We were just willing him to come through it, and the thought then is however badly injured they are, you just want them to live.

"To suddenly be presented with that fact that someone you love is dead or dying, to have to make this decision about something you never thought of before can be too overwhelming for many people."

Once they knew Nicholas would never awake from his coma, doctors brought up the idea of organ donation.

"It suddenly became obvious that something that had no good in it at all, now something good could come out of it," Green said.

While the pain of his son's death will stay with him forever, his heart is a little lighter knowing that Nicholas' death saved seven people's lives.

"We met them all subsequently, and it was heartwarming to know that all these people were saved."

And Niyale Johnson's parents also hope that their tragedy can bring joy to others who need it.

"I just feel like if another child out there can be saved, or adult or anything, that's the best thing that we can possibly do," McGee told WLOS.