Green Shirt Day puts spotlight on organ donations.

Hopefully all the work that we’ve done with Green Shirt Day has just made the conversation about organ donation more in the front so people are more willing to speak about the fact they have been impacted by a donation or a transplant.

Today is a day of reflection, introspection and mourning for the families whose loved ones died or were injured in the horrific crash of the Humboldt Broncos team bus with a semi-trailer unit on April 6, 2018.

Among the killed was Logan Boulet, who had informed his parents that he had signed his organ donor card in honour of his late coach and mentor

Ric Suggitt, whose own donations had saved the lives of six people.

Logan was among 16 who died following the crash. Another 13 were injured in the collision that occurred when the bus was struck by a westbound semi whose driver had failed to yield at a stop sign.

Logan, whose heart still beat after the crash, survived in hospital until the following day when his family made the unimaginably difficult decision to bid their son and brother farewell and donate his organs so others could live.

In the weeks that followed the crash, more than 150,000 Canadians registered as organ donors in Canada - the largest number of donors registered in Canada because of one event or person.

Like the other victims of the crash, Logan had a bright future ahead and was planning to attend the University of Lethbridge. And now rather than living a fulfilling life, he’s leaving a legacy.

For the Boulet family, today will be one they and the rest of the Humboldt Bronco community spend in solitude, thinking about their loved ones and supporting each other.

Tomorrow on April 7, Green Shirt

Day will be acknowledged here and a free public skate to promote donation awareness will be staged from 1 until 3 p.m. at the Logan

Boulet Arena in honour of Logan. Helmets are required for all skaters under the age of 18.

Tomorrow will be a day the Boulets emerge back into a spotlight they never sought to help spread the word on how important it is for people to sign their donor cards.

Logan’s mom Bernadine and his sister Mariko Boulet, in a recent interview, expressed their thoughts about Green Shirt Day six years after the lifechanging accident.

The Boulets are often asked to speak or get involved in events focused around Green Shirt Day, not only here but across the province and elsewhere.

Events in March alone included commitments with the Kidney Foundation and Canadian Blood Services.

Every conversation brings more hope to those who are awaiting transplants, Bernadine said in the interview.

And transplants can be absolutely life changing but people don’t know a lot about donations, says Mariko.

To be an angel donor, a person has to die a very specific death, says Mariko. And a person’s health plays a part, too, she said.

“People don’t know or understand about that piece,” said Mariko, noting donations affect not only the recipients of organs but also their families.

“An organ transplant helps save the lives of many, many people and not just the lives of the people getting the transplant,” she said.

Kidney transplants are the most common, said Bernadine. Kidneys are usually the organs most affected by medications and anti-rejection drugs used after other donations. So people who have had lung, heart or liver transplants may at some time need a kidney transplant, as well, Bernadine said, because of the impact of medications on the body.

“Sometimes people have had multiple ones and not all at the same time,” she said.

Years later, people can find themselves needing a new transplant or they may be good to go for the rest of their lives depending upon the reason for the transplant, how healthy a person is and how well a body takes the transplant, added Mariko.

“We have learned so much and have so much more to learn,” said Bernadine.

“It’s a world that you don’t really know much about until you’re a part of it, whether you

want to be,” whether a person is an angel donor family or are waiting for a transplant or who has a family member waiting for one.

“There’s people in your life that you didn’t even realize have been impacted by this or are waiting for something and then it kind of comes up and you’re either more aware of it or it was just never shared before….it’s a huge community you don’t know about until you kind of have to or take that leap, I guess,” said Mariko, an occupational therapist here who works with children.

“Hopefully all the work that we’ve done with Green Shirt Day has just made the conversation about organ donation more in the front so people are more willing to speak about the fact they have been impacted by a donation or a transplant,” said Bernadine.

The conversations are still being held six years later.

Bernadine, who teaches Grade 2 at Gerald B. Probe School, said she’s been very fortunate that the Lethbridge School Division and Probe administration have supported Green Shirt Day. The school holds an annual assembly presented by the Grade 2s, which is not about death and mortality, but rather about giving and supporting other people and how people can make a difference.

The first assembly at Probe was held in 2019 and there were almost no resources available for primary age children. Kids are interested in learning about organs that can be transplanted and why people wouldn’t give to someone else because it’s the right thing to do, said Bernadine.

“Kids see it differently,” she says. The school uses the The Orgamites, an organ donation learning program aimed at getting Canadian students and families to talk and learn about organ and tissue donations both at school and at home.

“It’s hard to think my person passed away but your person gets to live on because of that but just to know that helps a bit with us with our healing that he made a difference,” said Bernadine.

“It’s not just that single person, it’s all these people still get to have their person because of that donation,” said Mariko.

While a person can donate a kidney or part of a liver, which will regenerate, and still live, other donations have to come from a deceased person, they point out.

A paired donation program exists for kidney donations which enables someone to register to become a donor and that can speed up the process if someone who needs a transplant doesn’t have a family member who matches.

After all these years, people still reach out to the Boulets, said Mariko, with awareness still growing.

“The need is always there” for donations, Mariko adds.

Because of safety devices such as helmets and seatbelts that can reduce or prevent trauma, there aren’t as many of the specific types of deaths anymore that can lead to organ donations,

Mariko pointed out.

“We can advocate as much as you want to be a donor and you sign up and everyone signs up and only so many people pass, which has its pros obviously, but if you don’t pass you can’t donate a heart,” she said.

“That’s the importance - signing up and telling your loved ones or whoever to sign up because you never know,” she adds.

Trauma impact creates the best donors, she said, because the body of the victim is still working even though the brain isn’t.

Logan’s heart was beating strongly after the crash, says Bernadine, and he was the only one of the 16 victims whose organs could be donated.

“The 6th is kind of the day that our world changed, especially that evening, 4:54 on April 6 is when the world changed for us. Logan survived into April 7 so that’s the organ donation day for us, Logan’s story. But April 6 is the day that we work to honour the Broncos, wear green and gold, wear Broncos gear, jerseys, stay connected to our Bronco family,” said Mariko.

“We try not to make it a day about Green Shirt Day,” adds her mom.

In Canada, nearly 90 per cent of people say they support organ donations but only 32 per cent have actually registered their intent. And while donation rates have increased in the last decade, about 250 Canadians still die every year waiting for a transplant.