DANVERS — Within hours after Mark Haubner died Friday night in a Boston hospital after a New Year's Eve crash on Route 1, a 41-year-old averted death.
The following morning, two more people received a new lease on life after receiving something each had been waiting for: a new kidney.
Haubner was an organ donor and, along with his liver (donated to the 41-year-old man) and kidneys, the 26-year-old Wilmington resident donated his skin tissue and his corneas after he died from injuries from the crash.
"He saved three people already," said his brother, Shawn. "Mark's always been his own person. He would rarely listen to anybody. He always did his own thing and since he took the time to check the box off, there is a reason he wanted to be an organ donor."
Following the crash, Mark Haubner was flown by helicopter on Wednesday to Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, where he remained in critical condition for two days.
State police said Haubner pulled out of the ExxonMobil gas station on Route 1 north, near the Ferncroft rotary, and was trying to cross the northbound lanes and merge onto the southbound lanes when he collided with a 1995 Dodge Ram pickup truck. The driver of the truck, Jason Dixey, 31, of Danvers, was not injured.
The crash remains under investigation by state police.
Haubner, who suffered from severe head injuries in the crash, was taken off life support at 8:36 p.m. Friday and he survived on his own for about 12 minutes.
A team of doctors at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston was set up ahead of time to remove Haubner's organs shortly after his death.
Shawn said his brother stopped at the ExxonMobil gas station every day before work to get a cup of coffee.
Haubner worked across the street from the crash scene at Honda North in the shipping and receiving department. He had been trapped inside his 1985 Toyota Corolla, his prize possession, for 25 minutes until he was freed from the wreckage.
He had to be resuscitated at the scene, his brother said.
"Someone brought him back to life and gave us the opportunity to have a few more days with him," said Shawn, who spent five hours driving into Boston in a snowstorm from his Chicopee home.
"Myself, my brother Ryan, and my parents Frank and Beth want to say to everyone involved and the good Samaritans, thank you," Shawn said.
Haubner's funeral will be held Wednesday at St. Thomas Church in Wilmington.
Because of Mark's decision to donate his organs, his family is asking donations be made in his memory to the New England Organ Bank, 1 Gateway Center, Suite 202, Newton, MA 02458.
More than 100,000 people are on a waiting list nationwide for a new organ, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network.
In Massachusetts, 835 people are waiting for a liver and 1,614 people are waiting for kidneys.
Shawn and his family are not organ donors but plan on becoming donors now.
"I think Mark changed all our minds," he said.
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