Weeks Before Horrific Crash That Killed Him & 15 Others, Broncos Player Signed Life-Changing Paper
Sometimes even stories with happy endings have a tragic turn that no amount of resolution can quite cover.
Take the April 6 crash of a passenger bus in Humboldt, Saskatchewan, a tiny town of 6,000 souls.
The bus in question was carrying the Humboldt Broncos, a junior league hockey team. Understand that, in Humboldt, hockey is more than just an athletic pursuit.
“To keep a junior team in a small little city like Humboldt, it takes all the community to be involved, it takes all the businesses to be involved,” former National Hockey League player Sheldon Kennedy explained to the BBC. “These players are the heroes in these communities.”
Although the investigation is still ongoing, authorities know that the bus somehow collided with a tractor trailer, killing 15 of its passengers, including the head coach. The remaining 14 were all injured.
Among the deceased was one Logan Boulet, a 21-year-old player with a reputation for hard work.
“He was always so dedicated, he always put in the extra effort, he was good with the little fans, everything,” the former team captain Corey Dambrauskas told the National Post.
“You would never know he was 21, you would think he was 25. He was so mature.”
One of the signs of Boulet’s maturity was a piece of paper he’d signed mere weeks before the accident that took his life. It wasn’t a power of attorney or estate documents; rather it was something far simpler.
Of his own accord, Boulet went out and signed paperwork to become an organ donor. After the accident, he was kept on life support to facilitate the donation process, and physicians said that all of his vital organs had been successfully harvested and would go to six different individuals.
Dambrauskas seemed in awe of the young man’s foresight, saying, “Kids aren’t thinking about that nowadays, they’re thinking about other stuff. Him signing that, it shows what type of character he is right there.”
No amount of good that comes out of a situation like this can ever obliterate its horror. But Joyce Van Deurzen, executive director of the Kidney Foundation of Canada’s Saskatchewan and southern Alberta branches, said that it would make a world of difference to many in desperate straits.
“In this tragic circumstance, it’s the only good that can come out of it,” she said. “Other people who are in need of life are going to survive because of this decision, this gift that this donor and this family made.”
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