CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — The most memorable moment for one central Ohio family traveling to Boston for open-heart surgery might not be the success of the procedure, but what happened one day before it.
The Youngs are from Chillicothe and their son Mason was ready for cardiac fibroma surgery at Boston Children’s earlier this month. Cardiac fibroma is a non-cancerous heart tumor that can interfere with the way the heart works, blocking blood flow to vital organs and causing an abnormal heart rhythm.
Mason's surgery schedule timed out with the Columbus Blue Jackets game at TD Garden against the Boston Bruins.
A Bruins fan, who never met the Youngs before, heard about Mason’s story and donated his tickets.
“This guy sent me a message five minutes later and was like, 'Look, I got two tickets. They're on me if you want them',” said Dustin Young, Mason’s father. “I was like, man. I still get chills just thinking about it. Like there are good people in the world.”
During warmups, the family held up a sign that said they were from Columbus and were in town for open heart surgery. They asked Captain Boone Jenner for a stick.
The neon green sign caught his attention. The video posted to the Columbus Blue Jackets account on X, formerly known as Twitter, showed Jenner signing the stick on the bench and passing it over the glass near the bench to the Youngs.
“We just put up the sign. And he came right on over with the stick. So I was really surprised. He didn't have to do that at all. But he made his night,” said Kyla Young, Mason’s mother. “It said get well soon.”
Mason’s surgery was a success and he could travel back to Chillicothe to recover from home. His father shipped the stick back to make sure Mason’s new autographed stick was not lost in baggage claim.
“It's really helped with the process of dealing with an open-heart surgery,” said Kyla Young. “He is obsessed with it… a little souvenir, and we really appreciate it. [Jenner] didn’t have to do that for us.”
Jenner was the lone scorer for Columbus that night, in the loss to the Bruins, but he won over a fan.
10TV reached out to the Blue Jackets and Jenner was unable to comment on the moment after being placed on the injured reserve list for a fractured jaw injury in a game against St. Louis on Dec. 8.