A heart flown in from Hyderabad saved the life of a woman from Maharashtra at a hospital in Chennai on Saturday. The heart, which arrived in the city on a chartered flight at 9.19 a.m. reached Fortis Malar Hospital in Adyar in just 13 minutes, thanks to a green corridor created on the route.
According to K.R. Balakrishnan, director, cardiac sciences, Fortis Malar Hospital, the woman, who is in her fifties, was admitted around three weeks ago with cardiomyopathy, a condition where the heart muscle is abnormal, making it harder for the heart to pump and deliver blood to the rest of the body.
On Thursday evening, an alert came in from Hyderabad about a 20-year-old student who was declared brain dead. Doctors at Fortis Malar immediately sought out a chartered aircraft to fly them in to Hyderabad.
Finally, a flight was found that came in from Kochi, but by the time it arrived at Chennai airport, it was 2 a.m.
A team of four doctors, two nurses and a transplant coordinator flew out around 3 a.m., Dr. Balakrishnan said.
“We were cutting it a little close. A heart is only viable for about four hours, and by the time we reached our hospital it had been about three hours and forty minutes. But we managed to transplant it,” said Dr. Balakrishnan.
