Canadians are being urged to wear green shirts Sunday as part of a campaign inspired by a victim of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash whose death prompted hundreds of thousands of people to register as organ donors.
One year ago today Logan Boulet gave six others the gift of life by donating his organs.
Doctors had told his family he would never recover from injuries sustained in the crash on April 6, 2018, that killed 16 people – most of them players on the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team – and injured 13 others.
In honour of Boulet, April 7 is Green Shirt Day, aimed at inspiring others to register as organ donors.
“On April 7, 2018 Humboldt Bronco Logan Boulet saved six lives and inspired Canadians to register as organ donors,” the Green Shirt Day Twitter account wrote Sunday.
“Today, wear green and let’s inspire one another by registering and telling our family, because we are all in this together!”
Soon after the crash, it was revealed that Boulet had donated six of his organs. His actions inspired more than 200,000 people to sign up as donors, in what was dubbed the “Logan Boulet effect.”
Boulet, 21, had registered to become a donor on his birthday, just five weeks before the deadly crash.
“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.”
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.
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.
The #greeenshirtday and the #LoganBouletEffect hashtags have been trending on Twitter all weekend.
Dozens of Twitter users posted pictures of themselves in green shirts in a show of solidarity.
