Organ Retrieval Impossible

"The court cannot restore our lost weeks, the lost future of a young man, or repair the heartbreak of losing our son. For us, it will have to be enough for the court to make decisions that protect the public it serves from repeatable behaviour and from preventable tragedy."
Victim impact statement, Joanna Anderson

Joanna Anderson and the rest of Nathan Anderson's family sat by his bedside for two weeks, witnessing his frequent seizures as he lay dying. They have no idea whether he might have been aware. Whether he was able to hear his mother softly singing childhood lullabies to him. They celebrated his birthday as he reached 32 years of age, lying comatose, his body broken and his head "so badly smashed" his mother knew he could never recover.

"That was the most painful day that my husband and I ever spent. His sister couldn't bear it. We would wish it upon no one, except a person who needs to be stopped from causing such destruction", Nathan's mother said, reading her statement to the presiding justice at the trial of Glen Carkner who had destroyed their son's future as he was bicycling, the impact of the vehicle that hit him sending him into the car's windshield, then three metres into the air.

Nathan Anderson's body had been so destroyed that there was nothing left salvageable for his parents to give to organ donation medical replacement services. All that they were able to salvage were their son's corneas. Now, someone else sees out of his eyes. No other part of his body that might have advantaged someone desperate for organ replacement could be taken, he was so completely destroyed.

Glen Carkner had an old impaired driving conviction. At the accident scene he had refused to submit to a drug evaluation, while blowing zero on a roadside alcohol screening device. Oxycodone and cocaine were discovered in his car. Witnesses described the vehicle he was driving on February 2, 2012 as careening "recklessly and erratically" as he drove away from a Liquor Control Board of Ontario store parking lot when he had been refused service there.

Before even reaching Anderson road at a speed estimated to be around 60 to 70 km/hr., he had hit two cars in the LCBO parking lot. But Glen Carkner. at his trial pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing death, refusing a demand to determine if he was impaired by drugs, failing to remain at the scene of an accident in the parking lot, and drug possession.

His own personal story is that drugs represented for him a way to cope with the "overwhelming" stress of being the primary caregiver to his elderly parents, his father who had suffered a stroke, his mother who had pancreatic cancer. According to his defence counsel. Ontario Court Justice David Wake seemed to take that extenuating circumstance into account.

Mr. Carkner was given credit for his guilty plea and his admission about cocaine use. He apologized, weeping openly in court about having "screwed up" by killing an innocent man. His remorse appeared genuine. He listened to Joanna Anderson speak of her family's agony of grief watching over their son and brother as he died two weeks after the impact of Mr. Carkner's vehicle destroyed his life.

"Everyone should feel safe using our roadways, whether you are a motorist or a cyclist like Mr. Anderson was that day", said Justice Donoghue as he sentenced Mr. Carkner to four and a half years in prison and banned him from driving for twelve years following his release from prison.