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Canadians encouraged to register as organ donors as Green Shirt Day returns

The 2024 Green Shirt Day campaign hopes to encourage 100,000 people to register to become organ donors. The 2024 Green Shirt Day campaign hopes to encourage 100,000 people to register to become organ donors. (Burli Guest/greenshirtday.ca/CTV NEWS)

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Green Shirt Day is back, and Canadians are being encouraged once more to register as organ donors.

Green Shirt Day is a national campaign rooted in the legacy of an Alberta-born junior hockey player killed eight years ago in the Humboldt Broncos crash.

Twenty-one-year-old defenceman Logan Boulet died from his injuries on April 7, 2018, and his parents said it had been his wish to donate.

am800-news-brian-bacon-windsor-regional-hospital-donation-september-18-2021-1.16098392 am800-news-brian-bacon-windsor-regional-hospital-donation-september-18-2021 (Brian Bacon supporting Green Shirt Day for organ donation in Windsor, Ont. (Photo courtesy of the Windsor-Essex Gift of Life Association))

Green Shirt Day organizers say that decision helped save six lives.

And Canadian Blood Services says 150,000 people registered to become organ donors in the weeks that followed, launching what became known as the "Logan Boulet Effect" and Green Shirt Day.

The tragedy led to 16 deaths and 13 injuries after a truck driver went through a stop sign at a remote intersection in Saskatchewan and into the path of the Humboldt Broncos' team bus.