The Importance of Organ Donation

It’s almost impossible to think of anything positive coming out of last Friday’s horrific bus crash involving the Humboldt Bronco’s bus and a transport that killed 16 people including 21 year old Logan Boulet. Prior to the tragedy, Logan became an organ donor and his family was able to fulfill his wishes this week and his generous gift helped saved the lives of six people he will never meet.  Since his passing the “Logan Boulet” effect caused a spike in the number of Canadians signing up to be organ donors themselves.

In British Columbia there’s been a  six-fold increase in the number of potential donors signing up. Meantime his family has received incredible messages of support from folks across Canada and North America whose family members have either donated their organs or received life saving transplants.

His father Toby said receiving the messages have been therapeutic. Logan’s mother Bernadine told Global news “It’s overwhelming and it just seemed, for our family and because we were able to, that… it was just something we should do,” she added  “We have a son who has all these organs and we didn’t really know that the ripple effect would happen, and how incredibly awesome that is and how many people will benefit from that. ”That’s probably the biggest positive that can come out of this is that… there’s gonna be a lot of people who are going to carry on lives and be healthy.”

This story hits home for all of us at KiSS 1053 in Sudburywhen we lost Rich Griffin suddenly in May of 2015.  Shannon and Gary from KiSS Mornings reached out to Rich’s widow Nancy Griffin to discuss just how important organ donation is for those on the list and the families who have been hit with such incredible loss.