Mumbai, April 26 (IANS) The heart of a 17-year-old road accident victim was flown in a chartered flight from Surat to Mumbai in 75 minutes to save the life of a 43-year-old man from Rajasthan's Alwar, a hospital official said.
The patient at Fortis Hospital was suffering from Dilated Cardiomyopathy and desperately needed a new heart which became possible after the Surat youth's family consented to donate his heart, as well as his kidneys and liver.
With meticulous planning involving airport authorities at Surat and Mumbai, besides traffic and police officials, the heart travelled the 269-km distance in 75 minutes.
The heart was harvested and transported from Sunshine Global Hospital in Surat to Fortis Hospital in Mulund in the latter's fifth inter-state heart transplant in recent months.
The airports and traffic police in both cities swiftly prepared a 'green corridor' and the donated heart left the Surat hospital at 10.33 a.m., reaching the local airport in five minutes.
It was taken onboard a chartered flight which took off at 10.41 a.m. and landed in Mumbai at 11.20 a.m. and was out of the airport in a ready ambulance at 11.31 a.m.
Again, another 'green corridor' enabled it to traverse the heavy late morning peak traffic areas of eastern and central Mumbai to reach the Fortis Hospital at 11.47 a.m. and into the operation theatre a minute later.
A team of doctors led by Anvay Mulay, head of the cardiac transplant team, carried out the successful transplant surgery.
The recipient's condition was described as stable in the ICU.
He will be under observation for the next 2-3 days which will be critical for him, Mulay said.
Since the first heart transplant in August 2015, the hospital has carried out 14 such operations, including five inter-state and three PaedCard transplants.
The hospital said the successful operation was possible with the coordination of the Maharashtra and Gujarat airport authorities, Surat and Mumbai traffic police, state government official Gauri Rathod, NGO Donate Life, medical social workers and the medical teams.
