A California Highway Patrol officer who was fatally shot in Contra Costa County and had his organs donated to save others' lives was honored on a float in the 126th annual Rose Parade in Pasadena on New Year's Day.
Kenyon Youngstrom, a 37-year-old father of four, was shot on Sept. 4, 2012, during a traffic stop on Interstate Highway 680 near Alamo and died at a hospital a day later.
Youngstrom's organs went to multiple people, including a woman who had been waiting a decade for a transplant and a mother who received his left kidney and pancreas.
He was honored, along with 71 other inspirational givers, with a floral portrait on a Rose Parade float for the California Transplant Donor Network, a nonprofit focused on saving the lives of those in need of organ and tissue transplants.
"Knowing that he donated makes his loss a bit more bearable," Youngstrom's wife Karen said in a statement. "It's comforting to know that a piece of him is still somewhere in a very real and concrete way. Kenyon would be proud -- proud that he served the community, and proud that he was able to donate his organs and save someone's life."
