The Record | Dianne Wood
FERGUS — Somewhere in Ontario, a teenage boy who was very sick is thriving with a new kidney.
Another man received a desperately needed heart transplant.
Kim LeBlanc doesn’t know these people. But she cares about them as if they were her own son — because in a way, they are.
The teenage boy has a kidney, and the man has the heart of her son, Tyler Schwering.
Tyler was 15 when he died three days after being struck by a transport truck while crossing the Hanlon Parkway at College Avenue in Guelph on May 31.
The Grade 10 student was heading home from Centennial CVI. He was texting and had his ear buds on when he was hit by the truck going through the intersection on a green light. No charges were laid.
“It was a stupid mistake,’’ his mother said. “It was Tyler’s mistake. He gets on that silly phone and he just zones out.’’
It’s been barely a month since LeBlanc received “the worst news in the world’’ from a police officer who called her Fergus home.
Three days later, she and Tyler’s father, from whom she is divorced, made the decision to take their son off life support after he was declared brain dead in a Hamilton hospital.
Leblanc’s emotions are still raw. She knows it would be easy to “go home, sit by myself, drink and cry all day long.’’
Instead, the 44-year-old mother of two daughters and two stepsons is fighting to save other peoples’ lives by promoting organ donation. She’s talking about the tragedy to bring good out of it.
LeBlanc is heartened by the knowledge that her son’s organs can save eight lives and enhance the lives of 75 others through donations of tissue, corneas, heart valves, bone and skin.
Read more: http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/753682--fergus-mom-draws-comfort-from-son-s-final-gift
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