Silke Jasso
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The death of champion dirt track racer and Indy 500 driver Bryan Clauson didn’t make much sense when it occurred at the Belleville (Kansas) Midget Nationals USAC race back in 2016.
“He was upside down and a car drove through him,” his mom Diana Clauson says in a new ESPN interview. “I just remember them yelling really loud, ‘Get the ambulance over here.’ It was just devastation completely.”
He was just 27.
RELATED: Top dirt track racer Bryan Clauson dies from crash injuries
But today, his death has more meaning, thanks to the organ donations made after his untimely passing. “This all had to happen for a reason and the day that we found that he was a donor – that was our why,” said Bryan’s sister, Taylor Clauson.
In a story delicately and beautifully told by ESPN, Bryan’s organs were donated to five people, with his heart donated to a 63-year-old war veteran who Bryan’s family met in person on April 14, 2017.
RELATED: Dale Earnhardt Jr. gets emotional during tribute to fallen racer
“I had in the center of my chest something they loved,” veteran Dan Alexander said. “Maybe it was Bryan and maybe it was me and maybe it was the two of us together but I loved them and had never even met them. I loved them already. It’s not everyday that somebody dies for you and you continue to live because of the sacrifice he made.”
