A heart, once taken out of the body for donation, has to be implanted into the recipient within four hours of its retrieval. (Representational Image)

New Delhi: The heart of a deceased personnel of the Indian Air Force in Delhi was flown to Chennai recently to save the life of an old man, who was awaiting a suitable heart for transplantation, making it one of the longest haul of organ donation in the country.

A heart, once taken out of the body for donation, has to be implanted into the recipient within four hours of its retrieval.

For this particular transplantation, it covered a distance of more than 2,000 km, which has an average flying time two hours and 40 minutes, through a green corridor and coordination among several government agencies.  

The transplant co-ordination team at Gleneagles Global Health City in Chennai received an alert about the availability of a suitable donor in Delhi, from the Transtan, the apex body that governs Organ transplantations in Tamil Nadu.

The R&R Army hospital in Delhi took up the responsibility of harvesting the organ and rushing it to the Indira Gandhi International Airport, with the help of the Delhi traffic police, which made possible smooth transit of the organ from the hospital.

The organ was taken aboard a Jet Airways flight, which took-off at 4.12 pm from Delhi and landed at 6.50 pm at Chennai International airport from where the city traffic police got it to the hospital within 36 minutes at 7.26 pm.

A team of doctors at the Chennai hospital successfully implanted the donated heart in a patient who was ailing with end-stage heart failure.

“There was a very short window of opportunity to get the heart safely from Delhi to Chennai within the 6-hour window. The doctors at the Army hospital were kind enough to harvest the organ and ensure all necessary parameters were taken for transporting the organ safely to Chennai. The DGCA and airport authority in Delhi as well as Chennai played a monumental role in helping the heart reach us safely,” said Dr Sandeep Attawar, Director and Chair of Heart Failure and Transplant Programme, Gleneagles Global Hospitals Group.