The parents of a 21-year-old West Point cadet fatally injured in a skiing accident raced the clock to get a judge’s permission to retrieve his sperm for “the possibility of preserving some piece of our child that might live on.”

U.S. Military Academy Cadet Peter Zhu was declared brain dead Wednesday, four days after the California resident was involved in a skiing accident at West Point that fractured his spine and cut off oxygen to his brain.

“That afternoon, our entire world collapsed around us,” Monica and Yongmin Zhu of Concord, California, said in a court petition. But they saw a brief window to fulfill at least part of Peter’s oft-stated desire to one day raise five children.

The parents asked a state court judge Friday for permission to retrieve his sperm before his organs were removed for donation later that day at Westchester Medical Center. They argued the procedure needed to be done that day.