Many social media users say the donation of Humboldt Broncos player Logan Boulet's organs has not only potentially saved lives, but inspired them to have the conversation with loved ones and become donors themselves.
Ontario's organ donation agency says it saw online registrations nearly triple Sunday compared to two weeks prior.
Boulet, a 21-year-old defenceman from Lethbridge, Alta., was among the 15 people who died after a horrific crash involving the junior hockey team in Saskatchewan.
Fourteen others were injured when the team's bus and a transport truck collided Friday in a tragedy that has reverberated around the world.
Boulet's cousin Julie Kindt said on Facebook that Boulet had been on life support until his organs could be donated.
His godfather posted a statement on behalf of the family saying a surgical team from Alberta travelled to a Saskatoon hospital to conduct organ transplant procedures early Sunday morning.
Neil Langevin said six people were set to receive the "gift of life" from Boulet, and his other organs would be donated to science.
"Logan had made it known, and very clear to his family, that he had signed his organ donor card when he turned 21 just a few weeks ago," Langevin said in a Facebook post that had been shared more than 1,700 times as of Monday morning.
"These actions alone give voice to the selfless and benevolent nature Logan possessed in life for others."
Boulet's final act of generosity was met with an outpouring of support on social media.
Lee Ellis, a 55-year-old dog walker in the Toronto area, said she had been thinking about becoming an organ donor for a while, but only got around to it this weekend after coming across a tweet encouraging others to follow Boulet's lead and become donors.
"There's always a bit of a silver lining, even in a tragedy like this," Ellis said in a phone interview. "This is definitely going to be part of his legacy. The people that get his organs are going to have a chance at a good life."
A spokesperson for Ontario's Trillium Gift of Life Network said 182 people registered online to become donors Sunday, up from 67 new registrations on March 25.
Jennifer Long said the majority of Ontario organ donors register in person, and the number of registrations tends to fluctuate, so it can be challenging to pinpoint any single explanation for the jump.
Ellis said she was surprised by how easy it was register as a donor online, and encouraged her social media followers to do the same.
"I think a lot of people want to do it," she said. "If they see somebody doing it that they know, or someone who is kind of a public figure ... it might give them enough of a boost to do it."
'VALLEY OF DARKNESS:' BRONCOS' PASTOR RECALLS SCREAMS OF DYING AFTER BUS CRASH
HUMBOLDT, Sask. — Thousands gathered to remember 15 people who died when the Humboldt Broncos' bus crashed late last week and heard a heart-rending recollection from the team chaplain who happened upon the gruesome scene and heard sounds of the dying.
"We travelled up and arrived at the scene ... and walked up on a scene I never want to see again," Pastor Sean Brandow told a vigil held Sunday night in the Saskatchewan junior hockey team's home arena. "To sounds I never want to hear again."
He said he felt at a loss as emergency crews worked to save those they could. And then it got worse.
"To go to the hospital and walk around and just hear groaning and panic and fear and distress and pain and just nothing but darkness," he said.
"To sit and hold the hand of a lifeless body ... This is the valley of darkness. All I saw was darkness and hurt and anguish and fear and confusion. And I had nothing. Nothing. I'm a pastor, I'm supposed to have something."
Brandow encouraged those gathered to lean on their faith as they struggle to deal with the tragedy.
People laid flowers in a circle around centre ice in the rink as family and friends of players listened to prayers and hymns.
Pictures of the dead and injured were placed on stands at one end of the arena.
Nick Shumlanski, the only one of the 14 injured in the crash to be released from hospital, attended the vigil wearing his white, green and yellow team jersey, an obvious bruise under his left eye.
The Humboldt Broncos were on their way to a playoff game Friday in Nipawin when the bus carrying the team collided with a semi.
Sunday's vigil took place the same night as Game 6 was scheduled to be played with the Nipawin Hawks in the Humboldt rink. There was a moment of silence at the time the game was supposed to start.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attended the vigil along with Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe. Trudeau visited survivors of the crash in a Saskatoon hospital earlier in the day.
Family and friends also shared more stories Sunday of their memories of those lost and unbreakable bonds forged by a love for hockey.
More names were confirmed of those killed early Friday evening at an east-central Saskatchewan highway intersection.
Scott Thomas remembered his 18-year-old son, defenceman Evan Thomas, as a strong athlete. He played both hockey and baseball and was a good student. But he was a teammate first.
"He liked sports, but at times I think he tolerated sports so he could be a teammate," the father said in a phone interview with The Canadian Press. "He loved his teammates and I think that was more important to him than the actual sport he was playing.
"He loved those boys. He really loved those boys."
Thomas said that before Christmas, he spoke with the team's head coach, Darcy Haugan, who was also killed in the crash, about whether there would be any trades for the second half of the season.
"Darcy just said, 'You know, Scott, there's something about this group of kids that's special,'" he recalled. "He didn't want to make any changes because they are such a great group of kids."
Player Logan Boulet, 21, had been on life support until his organs were donated, cousin Julie Kindt said on Facebook.
"These actions alone give voice to the selfless and benevolent nature Logan possessed in life," his godfather, Neil Langevin, posted in a statement on behalf of the family.
Assistant coach Chris Beaudry was driving his own vehicle to the game the night of the crash.
In an interview, he described his colleague, Mark Cross, as one of the happiest people he had ever met. Cross was from Strasbourg, Sask., where he played hockey before joining the Broncos' coaching staff.
"His first game, we found a tin of mints and ever since then it's been alternating back and forth, buying mints for each other and sharing it as a joke. We'd end up going through a whole tin every game," said Beaudry.
Brody Hinz, 18, worked as the team statistician for the local radio station. Golden West Radio said in a statement that Hinz was being mentored by Tyler Bieber, the team's play-by-play announcer, who was also killed in the crash.
Adam Herold, a few days shy of his 17th birthday, was the youngest to die in the crash. He had previously played with the Regina Pat Canadians but, when the Regina team's season wrapped up, he was sent to join the Broncos for their playoff round.
Xavier Labelle, 18, was described by his brother Isaac Labelle in an Instagram post.
"Best friends, teammates, allies, brothers," he wrote.
Jacob Leicht, 19, was remembered for his laugh and bright smile.
"Your laughter is so contagious and you had a smile that lit up any room," relative Cassidy Tolley wrote in a Facebook post.
Charlie's Charters posted on Facebook about the bus driver's death. Another team Glen Doerksen drove for, the Kinistino Tigers, also issued a statement.
"(Doerksen) spoke at length of his time in rinks with his own family and now how much he enjoyed being able to take and watch other teams from minor, to senior to SJHL to their hockey games," a spokesperson for the Tigers wrote on Facebook.
Others killed include Broncos captain Logan Schatz, defenceman Stephen Wack and forwards Jaxon Joseph and Logan Hunter.
The intersection in east-central Saskatchewan where the crash happened reopened to traffic shortly before noon on Sunday.
While the wreckage had been removed, there were still playing cards and a broken DVD of the movie "Slap Shot" scattered in the ditch. The Hanson brothers, popular characters in the movie, tweeted condolences to the Broncos on the weekend, as did other celebrities.
Team president Kevin Garinger acknowledged the shock and heartache at the arena during vigil.
"I want to say to all the Humboldt Broncos families, billets, coaching staff, teammates, classmates, teachers, friends, community members — not one of us is alone in our grief," he said.
Garinger then read off a list of the injured and dead, his voice breaking toward the end.
"Today and for every day forward we are all Humboldt Broncos."
SOCIAL MEDIA USERS LEAVE HOCKEY STICKS ON PORCHES IN TRIBUTE TO HUMBOLDT BRONCOS CRASH VICTIMS
Social media users are reaching out to the Saskatchewan town of Humboldt, sharing photos of hockey sticks left on front porches to pay tribute to the 15 lives lost after a bus carrying the Broncos junior hockey team collided with a semi truck.
Fourteen others were injured in Friday's crash — some critically.
The tragedy has captured the world's attention, and more than $5 million had been raised online for the victims and their families by Monday morning.
The hockey stick tribute gained traction when Winnipeg Jets broadcaster and Humboldt native Brian Munz shared a screenshot of a text message he said he received from a high school friend in the town of 6,000 people.
"Leaving it out on the porch tonight. The boys might need it ... wherever they are," the screenshot reads, along with a picture of a hockey stick.
The tweet has been shared thousands of times.
Munz invited others to join the tributes on Sunday night, prompting scores of users to post similar photos and messages of support, some using the hashtag #putyourstickout.
Teena Monteleone, a Prince Albert, Sask.-based radio host, was among those who left a hockey stick outside.
"Leaving a stick on the porch tonight in support of the @HumboldtBroncos and in memory of (Adam Herold) — an amazing hockey player and young man we had the honour of billeting," she tweeted.
The campaign was one way among many that people were commemorating the team.
Others promised to wear hockey jerseys on Thursday to show support for those grieving. That day would have marked the 17th birthday of Herold — the youngest member of the team, and one of the deceased.
The Winnipeg Jets and Chicago Blackhawks honoured the Humboldt team by wearing jerseys with the word BRONCOS across their name plates during their regular-season finale on Saturday night.
The Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks all wore Humboldt Broncos decals on their helmets during games on Saturday night. The latter two teams also wore Broncos-coloured green and yellow lapel ribbons.
INVESTIGATING HUMBOLDT TEAM BUS CRASH LIKELY TO BE A LONG PROCESS, EXPERTS SAY
MONTREAL — The investigation into a deadly crash that killed 15 people in northeastern Saskatchewan last Friday will be a long and painstaking one, according to several collision experts.
Retired RCMP collision analyst Rob Creasser says months of work could lie ahead for the analysts and reconstruction experts who are tasked with piecing together the circumstances that caused the collision between a semi truck and a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos hockey team.
Weather, skid marks, visibility, speed and the mechanical condition of the vehicles are just a few of the factors that will eventually be analyzed in order to reconstruct the crash, according to Creasser, a 28-year veteran with the RCMP in British Columbia.
"It's almost physics," he said in a phone interview.
"Two objects come together and they depart at different angles, and you're looking for any indication of braking, skid marks, gouge marks on the roadway, that kind of thing."
Creasser said the initial gathering of information at the scene takes hours or days, as investigators try to find clues and work to create a comprehensive map that includes the location of each piece of debris and the vehicles' resting places.
But analyzing that data can take much longer.
Computer simulations, he said, will eventually recreate the moments leading to the crash, while a parallel investigation will tackle witness and survivor statements.
There are also vehicle maintenance reports to obtain, and mechanics to be brought in to examine the engines of the shattered vehicles for any defects.
"When there's a human death, there's an autopsy," he said. "Well, this is the autopsy of the vehicles."
In Friday's tragedy, the truck was heading west at the intersection south of Nipawin when it collided with the bus. The force of the crash propelled both vehicles into the ditch at the northwest corner of the intersection.
Aerial footage showed the bus on its side, its roof peeled back and its front end destroyed.
The trailer of the truck lay nearby in a shattered mess, with bags of its peat moss cargo scattered all around. The tractor part was intact, lying on its passenger side.
The semi truck would have had to yield to a stop sign before crossing over the highway the hockey bus was travelling on. There is a stand of trees on the southeast corner of the intersection, limiting visibility of the approach on both roads.
In the case of the Humboldt accident, "the scene talks a lot," according to former Quebec provincial police crash expert Pierre Bellemare.
Bellemare, who retired in 2005 after 25 years of service, says that since the road travelled by the bus didn't have a stop sign, investigators will have to determine whether the semi truck came to a full stop at the intersection.
That, he said, will involve speaking to survivors and witnesses, confirming the truck's speed, load, and mechanical condition, and checking for anything that may have impeded the driver's field of vision.
Investigators will also look at the safety of the intersection where the crash occurred.
Jason Young, the president of Toronto-based reconstruction company Advantage Forensics, says analysts will look at the intersection's history of recent accidents and make sure the road meets Canadian design standards for safety and visibility.
"We're looking at the visibility across the corners, the visibility the driver on the side road has of approaching vehicles in both directions," said Young, who has not viewed the site and is not involved in the investigation.
If traffic conditions and the accident history warrant, municipalities could eventually change an intersection to a four-way stop or a traffic signal, he said.
Some experts, he said, are also recommending increasing the number of roundabouts at intersections as a way to avoid often deadly T-bone collisions.
All three experts agree that a major investigation such as the Humboldt one is likely to take time, involving input from police, reconstruction experts, government agencies, mechanics, engineers, and eventually the Crown.
"This is something you don't want to rush," Creasser said. "You want to do a very thorough investigation, and you're not counting on only you."
He's hoping the public will spare a thought for the front-line workers, many of whom are likely struggling with the trauma they've witnessed.
"You can't unsee something," he said. "You can imagine what those members who are first on scene, and those who came subsequently, saw."
