While sharing her son’s story during National Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Week, Carrie Balkwill said Brayden was a giver and someone who instinctively looked for ways to make life better for others.
“Whether it was saving people, saving parts, saving critters, saving someone that was having a bad day, that was Brayden,” Balkwill said.
“His main purpose in life was finding something that was broken and making it new.”
When the 25-year-old Brayden was in a tragic vehicle crash in 2023, his mom said the question around organ and tissue donation was an easy one.
Although they never spoke about the decision outright, she knew that if it meant helping someone else, he would say yes.
“It was a gift that speaks to who my son was in life,” she said. “Now he can continue to live on in someone’s life and make them whole and new again.”
Brayden Balkwill saved at least three lives when he donated his organ and tissues after he died and impacted several more.
Supplied
Both of Brayden’s kidneys, his liver, his corneas and his heart valves were donated. He saved three lives and impacted many more.
While it was the most difficult time in Balkwill’s life, she said that while she said goodbye, her family also celebrated.
“We celebrated the fact that everything that we were facing in those critical moments, there was going to be something at the end of this that had more to tell,” she said.
In 2025, 272 people donated organs and/or tissue after they died in Alberta.
More than 500 people are on the waiting list for a life-saving transplant.
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Each year, dozens of people in Alberta die while waiting for a transplant.
Balkwill took Brayden’s story to a group of people who often don’t get to hear stories about donors — laboratory scientists with Alberta Precision Labs, who work behind the scenes to find matches for organs and tissue.
“If it wasn’t for those people in that room making those matches, then the celebration of Brayden’s life wouldn’t be continuing,” Balkwill said.
Their work centers around finding an ideal match and minimizing the risk of rejection of an organ for recipients.
“In an ideal world, you find a perfect match,” Deanna Tosczak, one of the lab scientists, said.
“It’s not very common unless you’re an identical twin.”
Brayden Balkwill saved at least three lives when he donated his organ and tissues after he died and impacted several more.
Courtesy Carrie Balkwill
Because they don’t work at the bedside, Tosczak said lab scientists rarely hear the personal stories behind the samples they analyze. When they do, it’s the recipient or their family, not donors.
“We receive samples from our recipients and our donors, but we don’t know what their stories are.”
“Being able to hear from those families, for how our work impacted their experience during a really difficult time, is really important for us and it’s very impactful,” she said.
Brayden’s donation of tissue has also impacted several lives. While organ donation often gets the most attention, tissue donation can help up to 75 people, including restoring sight or helping heal severe injuries.
“Everyone thinks of organ donation,” Candice Bohonis, senior tissue specialist with the Comprehensive Tissue Centre, said.
“Tissue donation is something that most people can qualify for and it’s a very high-demand donation.”
The criteria for tissues is different as well.
“We can take donors up to 81 years old, so if you’re a senior or if you have health conditions that may preclude you from organ donation, it’s a possibility for tissue donation,” she added.
Bohonis said hearing stories like Brayden’s can highlight the impact their work has and the impact one donation can make.
“We talk to these families in the worst time of their life — it’s a very sad time but something that comes from it is really amazing,” she said.
Give Life Alberta, the province’s organ and tissue donation program, said it’s important for people to understand the importance of not only registering to be an organ and tissue donor at vehicle registries or online at GiveLifeAlberta.ca but also to have a conversation with your loved ones as they will have the final say.
Balkwill said she never had the chance to talk to Brayden explicitly about donation but hopes by sharing her story, other families will be able to have that conversation before tragedy strikes.
She said speaking about Brayden and his gift gives her “grief a place to land” and she’s grateful her son was able to fix something or someone that was broken, one last time.
“In the most painful experience of my life, there was a very beautiful moment,” she said.
“That beautiful moment was knowing that there was purpose in my tragedy.”
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