GIFTS OF LIFE
Salinas teen’s death prompts organ, tissue donations helping dozens.

Joel Ede | Monterey County Weekly

Salinas High School junior Kyle Beardshear bowed his head and prayed over pizza with his friends during a high school youth program at First Presbyterian Church of Salinas on March 6. After their lunch together, Kyle said goodbye to his friends and his youth pastor, Joel Parkins, hopped on his bicycle and started the one-mile trip home.


“He rode that bike everywhere,” Parkins says, “and always in shorts and flip-flops… could be raining, it didn’t matter.”


According to a report from an unidentified bystander, Kyle swerved, over corrected and was thrown headfirst from his bicycle after colliding with a parked car. Paramedics arrived on scene, finding him unconscious and unresponsive due to acute head trauma. 


The 17-year-old was put on life support for the next three days at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital in order to keep vital organs healthy, and to give friends and loved ones one last chance to hold his hand before he was declared legally dead. 


Last Thursday, surgeons harvested enough of the teen’s organs and tissues to help more than 50 people.


Though his friends say Kyle regularly wore a helmet while riding, the officer on scene reported the helmet was fastened to his mountain bike’s handlebars. 


Kyle’s parents, John and Kim Beardshear, say the decision to donate their son’s organs was a natural one. They describe a young man, ever smiling, always willing to help another in need. 


“He always gave people grace,” Kim Beardshear explains. “He was genuinely concerned for people and he sought out the outcasts.”


Almost 500 people “liked” and commented on a memorial Facebook page created by Kyle’s 14-year-old sister, Kaitlyn. The page is filled with humorous anecdotes about the 6-foot-2-inch “man-child” famous for his “bear hugs” and the over-sized golf umbrella he carried on rainy days – lightheartedly referred to as his “friend maker.”


More than 86 million people in the U.S. are signed up as organ donors and roughly 110,470 people are on waiting lists for various organs, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But despite the seemingly plentiful number of donors, 18 people die each day waiting for donated organs that never come. 


In addition to Kyle’s lungs, heart, liver and kidneys, doctors also harvested his blood and bone marrow. Due to confidentiality issues, SVMH officials were not able to talk specifically about who the donations will benefit or even where the organs were sent.


Kim Beardshear accepts the idea of donating her son’s organs as straightforward – “Kyle doesn’t need them anymore,” she explains. “If we can recycle cans and bottles, why not organs?”


John Beardshear’s own sister is currently on the lung recipient list, but Kyle’s lungs were not a match for his aunt. “It would have been the icing on the icky cake if she could have received his lungs,” Kim Beardshear says.


Once organs are removed, medical staff has a very short time to get them to recipients before they lose integrity – ensuring Kyle’s organs have already saved lives.


Kyle’s family says they look forward to eventually meeting the recipients of his organs and “hope they understand the gift God has given to us and that God has given to them.” 



A memorial service for Kyle Beardshear will be held at 2pm, March 26, at First Presbyterian Church, 830 Padre Drive, Salinas.