4 Receive Organs From Slain CHP Officer, Funeral Set For Thursday
ALAMO (CBS SF) -- A California Highway Patrol officer killed in a shooting on Interstate 680 last week near Alamo is being hailed as a hero after his organs were donated to four California residents—including three from the Bay Area.
CHP Officer Kenyon Youngstrom, 37, of Fairfield, was shot in the head during a traffic stop on Sept. 4 around 8:30 a.m. on southbound I-680 near Livorna Road and was pronounced dead the next day at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek.
His organ and tissue donations went to a varied group of people, one of whom had been waiting a decade for a transplant, CHP officials said.
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A 52-year-old woman from the Bay Area who had been waiting for a transplant since 2002 received the officer's right kidney, and a 29-year-old mother received Youngstrom's left kidney and pancreas.
The mother had been on the organ transplant waiting list for three years.
A third Bay Area resident, a 63-year-old woman, received Youngstrom's liver.
A recipient in Southern California was able to receive a new heart because of Youngstrom. The 50-year-old man is a married father of four.
During the surgery to recover Youngstrom's organs, operating room personnel and surgeons observed a moment of silence for the man remembered as a loving father and husband who put God and his family first, according to CHP officials.
A funeral for the slain CHP officer will be held at the Mission Church in Vacaville on Thursday at 10 a.m., CHP officials said.
The seven-year CHP veteran had been working in the Contra Costa office in Martinez since February 2006 before he was transferred in January 2009 to the Golden Gate Division headquarters before returning to Contra Costa County on Aug. 1 of this year.
Youngstrom had previously served in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1994 to 2000 where he had reached the rank of specialist.
He is survived by his wife Karen, two sons and two daughters, and his parents, Gaylord and Jill Youngstrom, of Riverside, Calif. He also had four brothers and a sister.
Youngstrom is the 223rd CHP officer to be killed in the line of duty since 1929.
His name will be engraved on the CHP Memorial Fountain in Sacramento.
The shooting occurred when Youngstrom was talking to a driver of a green Jeep Wrangler that his partner had pulled over on southbound I-680 north of Livorna Road for an apparently obscured license plate.
The Jeep's driver, identified as Christopher Boone Lacy, 36, of Corning, Calif., shot Youngstrom without warning after a brief conversation on the side of the highway, Contra Costa County sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee said.
The second officer shot Lacy after Youngstrom was struck.
Both Youngstrom and Lacy were taken to John Muir Medical Center, where Lacy died that day.
Lacy graduated from San Francisco State University's computer science master's program in 2005 and was a computer engineer.
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