THE organs of a Selby motorcyclist who died in a mystery crash have been used to help save the lives of three other people, it was revealed today.

Father-of-three Dean Hopkins was airlifted to Pinderfields Hospital, in Wakefield, where he was kept on a life-support machine for 24 hours before his devastated wife Julia, 36, gave permission for the machine to be switched off.

The heartbroken family also gave the go-ahead for his kidneys and liver to be removed so that his tragic death would not be totally in vain.

Several days later, hospital staff rang to say that his two kidneys and liver had been used in transplant operations and that all three patients were doing well.

A family member said today: "Dean was a donor card holder, and so is his wife, Julia. It gives us a little consolation that he will at least live on in other people.

"The hospital said one of the people he helped had been waiting for a transplant for five years."

Several hundred people attended the funeral of Mr Hopkins yesterday. They included many of his workmates at Kellingley Colliery where Mr Hopkins, 37, had worked for 20 years. Also there were dozens of fellow bikers whom he befriended on his regular Wednesday night visits to the Milk Bar, at Sherburn-in-Elmet.

His son Chris, 21, said they were mystified by the accident, which happened on the A645 only a few hundred yards from the family home, in Eggborough.

Mr Hopkins suffered severe brain damage when his red Honda 900cc motorbike left the road.

Chris said: "We can't work out what happened.

"He was on a road he must have used a million times on his way to work and he was a very experienced biker."

Mr Hopkins and his wife - who also have another son, James, 13, and a daughter, Megan, eight - were childhood sweethearts.

Chris said: "They lived for each other and their family - we still can't believe he's gone.

"The pit organised a collection and we were told it was the largest amount of money that had ever been raised - that's how popular he was."

Updated: 14:56 Wednesday, September 26, 2001