Humboldt Broncos crash leads to spike in organ donor registrations on P.E.I.
Staff report over 350 new donors have signed up in the last two days
There has been a spike in registrations for organ donors in P.E.I. in the last two days, which provincial staff believe is due to the Humboldt Broncos tragedy and the organ donations made by Logan Boulet.
"Yesterday morning I had checked my email before I went to my meeting, and someone had posted something on Facebook about it and I had 25 emails saying that we had new registrations, that was about within the first hour after this post on Facebook," said Angela Carpenter, provincial organ and tissue donation and transplant manager.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Carpenter said they had 369 new registrants and also some interest in becoming living donors. Carpenter is currently at meetings with her national counterparts and said all provinces are seeing a big increase since the accident.
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Carpenter said she has never seen a spike like this before, even when they have been doing pushes for new donors.
"We launched the online registry a year ago in April and in the first eight days that it was launched, we had 260 registrations and like I just said we've had over 360 in less than 48 hours," she said.
"I think people really want to see something good come out of something bad. So the fact that one was able to become an organ donor and help six people, I think it gives people hope when there's so much hopelessness."
Carpenter said the spike is encouraging for those waiting. There are 18 people on the list for organs in P.E.I. and she hopes more people will continue to sign up.
"People don't like to think about organ donation because in most cases you become an organ donor after you die ... and people don't like to think about dying and they think, 'Oh it will never happen and I can sign up later,' but then when something like this happens and you just realize you just never know."
In P.E.I., you can register online or when you renew or register for your health card. Carpenter wants to remind people that signing up is not enough, you should tell your loved ones your intentions too to make sure your wishes are known and can be granted.
"What happens is usually when the opportunity to donate comes up, it's because of a sudden tragic death and the families are overwhelmed and they're tired and this isn't something that they're thinking about," she said.
"If you can talk to your family beforehand and let them know yes this is definitely what I want, then when the time comes, they're much more likely to remember that conversation."
The actual organ and tissue donation process is not currently performed on P.E.I., donors are transported off Island for the procedure.
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