Nearly one year after the Humboldt Broncos crash, the family of Logan Boulet is reflecting on his legacy of inspiring others to registers as organ donors.
Boulet, 21, suffered fatal injuries in the April 6, 2018 crash. When doctors told his family he would never recover, they chose to fulfill his wish of being an organ donor – he had registered just five weeks earlier, on his birthday.
“My first thought [was] we donate Logan's organs,” Boulet’s mother, Bernadine Boulet, told CTV News. “And they were shocked. But it seemed the right thing to do.”
In the following weeks, that donation inspired more than 100,000 people to sign up to do the same, in what was later dubbed the “Logan Boulet effect.”
Today, it’s estimated that Boulet has inspired more than 200,000 people to register as organ donors.
In honour of Boulet, April 7 will be Green Shirt day, aimed at inspiring others to register.
The summer before he died, Boulet had told his father Toby that he had wanted to be an organ donor because his late mentor and fitness trainer Rick Suggit had been one.
“If Rick can save six lives, I can save six lives,” Boulet had told his father.
Suggit had died suddenly in 2017.
Besides inspiring droves of people to become organ donors, Boulet’s decision ended up reaching the pages of Sports Illustrated magazine and became the subject of a documentary. The arena Boulet grew up playing hockey in was even renamed in his honour.
Boulet’s parents believe their son’s inspiration to others is his greatest legacy.
Roshan Perera, who received a lung transplant six years ago, agrees. He said organ recipients are given a second chance at life, and he prays for the family of his organ donor every day.
Perera said Boulet’s message is ultimately one of hope.
“Even if your life comes to an end, you can live on in other people,” he said.
Boulet’s father hopes to reach out to those who received his son’s organs, but he has to wait at least a year before he can meet them.
His wife said that while her son was in hospital, she loved to listen to her son’s heartbeat. Boulet said one day she’d love to “hear his heart beat again.”
