Chennai: A 37-year-old dead woman's heart, harvested in a Bangalore hospital, now beats in a man after it was flown to Chennai for a live transplant in a record time on Wednesday.
"The operation has been successful, as a team of eight cardiologists raced against time to transplant the live heart into our patient within four hours," Fortis Malar Hospital director Harish told reporters in Chennai.
The day-long dramatic development unfolded at the private-run BGS multi-specialty hospital in Bangalore when its doctors harvested the heart from the woman who died in early hours of Wednesday due to brain injury in a road accident.
The heart was rushed in an ambulance to the Bangalore airport, covering 45 km in a record 40 minutes and flown in a special Air India aircraft to Fortis in Chennai.
"As a harvested heart has to be transplanted from a donor to a receiver within six hours, we are grateful to the traffic police in Bangalore and Chennai for creating a green corridor between the two hospitals through airports and bringing it (heart) for the operation in time," Harish said.
Fortis flew a team of its doctors to Bangalore earlier in the day to collect the woman's heart after her family consented to donate the organ and rush back to save the life of its patient.
"When we got a call from Fortis earlier in the day for a cadaver heart to save a patient in its hospital, we took the help of local traffic police to clear the way for the ambulance carrying the heart in a special box to reach the city airport in time for the flight to Chennai," BGS Hospital vice president N.K. Venkataramana said.
In Chennai, the heart was rushed to Fortis in Adyar suburb in 10 minutes after a 35-minute flight through a green corridor its city traffic police facilitated through the 12-km route.
A human heart can be preserved for up to six hours with help of a solution for transplantation to save the life of a needy patient.
"Though transportation of organs through green corridors for transplant within the golden hour is common in developed countries, I think this is the first time we were able to do it with the help of city police and cooperation of citizens here and in Chennai," Venkataramana said.
A donor's heart can extend can save the life of its receiver for about 20 years if transplantation is successful.
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