Hero organ donor Bella Trezza, killed in West Babylon crash, saves lives of three people

In the final hours of Bella Trezza’s life, she gave everything she could but her heart. 

The family of the 17-year-old senior from St. John the Baptist High School donated her liver and kidneys last year to save the lives of three people after she was critically injured i n a West Babylon crash. 

"In the midst of the most unimaginable pain and heartbreak, we were faced with decisions no family would ever expect to make," her father, James Trezza, said during a Friday ceremony honoring Bella as an organ donor at Good Samaritan University Hospital in West Islip.

"When we were asked about her organ donation, saying yes to Bella being a donor hero felt like the only answer because it was exactly who she was," Trezza said. "Bella was always about giving, always about helping, always about offering her heart."

Trezza, of Babylon, was planning to become a nurse and had started volunteering at Good Samaritan University Hospital next door to her school.

Hospital officials partnered with LiveOnNY, the Long Island City-based nonprofit that matches donors with the federal organ transplant list, to honor Bella, doctors, nurses and a heart transplant recipient, Ken Abbott, 60, of Centerport.

"The organ donation process exemplifies that compassion at its highest level, turning the loss into life and the tragedy into hope," Good Samaritan president Dr. Justin Lundbye said.

The organs donated from one person can save up to eight lives. Good Samaritan doctors have saved 125 lives in the past three years from organ donations and improved other lives with 150 tissue donors, said Dr. Abraham Warshaw, chief medical officer for LiveOnNY.

On Sept. 21, just after 1 a.m., Trezza was driving her brother Austin Trezza and their friends Riley Goot, 18, of Babylon, and Anthony Pagliuca, then 16, of West Babylon, home from a friend’s house.

As they approached the intersection of Great East Neck Road and Railroad Avenue in West Babylon, their SUV was struck by a Kia sedan driven by Michael Desmond, 33, of Lindenhurst, who police said ran through a red light. The crash killed Desmond, Bella and Goot, and critically injured Austin Trezza and Pagliuca.

Retired LI teacher gets heart

James Trezza said after his daughter's heart stopped at the hospital, the family decided to donate her organs. He said his mother was a recipient of a double lung transplant that helped her to survive to meet Bella when she was born.

Her liver went to a man in his 60s living in New York City, and her kidneys went to two women in their 30s in Maryland and Massachusetts. The family has not met the recipients.

In another case, Abbott, a retired science teacher at Grand Avenue Middle School in Bellmore, said he had also written letters seeking to thank the family for the heart transplant that saved his life. 

He said he was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease shortly after he turned 40, and his condition deteriorated. He received a pacemaker five years later and, in 2016, was told he had a 5% chance of survival. He received a heart transplant two months later and he's now planning to bike across the country. 

"I wouldn't be speaking here today unless it was for my donor hero and that family," Abbott said. "I truly wish I could share the story with them, so they could see some of the impact of what it's done for me and my family and my community."