2-year-old Bengaluru Boy Donates Heart to Russian Kid
A little boy who is just 2 years and 10 months old has become a life savior for a Russian child. The boy who was declared brain dead on Thursday has his heart airlifted from Bengaluru to Chennai on Friday afternoon in less than an hour.
In Chennai, the doctors transplanted the heart successfully into the Russian child in a surgery that lasted nearly eight hours.
The 2-year-old Bengaluru boy had been admitted to a nursing home on December 12 after he developed high fever. When the fever didn't subside and his condition worsened, he was moved to the ICU. The boy's parents had shifted him to Manipal Hospitals on December 14 after they found no improvement in the boy. Despite the best efforts of doctors, the boy became brain dead and was declared so at 4 pm that day. The Zonal Coordination Committee of Karnataka (ZCCK) was swift in being intimated about organs available through cadaver donation and matched them with the patients in need, who underwent transplants in private hospitals.
An operation that lasted less than an hour was performed on Friday and the baby's vital organs such as heart, kidneys, liver and eyes were harvested. The heart was airlifted in a speedy operation from Manipal Hospitals to Fortis Malar Hospital, Chennai, on a chartered flight from HAL airport. A team from Fortis Malar went to Bengaluru and retrieved the heart. The travel time from Bengaluru to Chennai took about 47 minutes in total.
The Russian child, who had been waiting for a heart transplant, was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy and admitted to Fortis Malar last month, after he had been enrolled in the transplant registry for a new heart. Doctors had told the child's parents that a heart transplant was the only solution. "The procedure began a little ahead of 2 pm where we prepped the patient for surgery. As soon as the heart arrived by 2.10pm, things began to move at full swing. Now the heart is beating well and the surgery is a success," said a doctor at Fortis Malar who was part of the team, which performed the surgery.
"It had been a very trying time for the past one month and I could not control my tears when I finally saw the heart arrive at the hospital from the airport. All I could do was join my hands in prayer all through the day hoping that the surgery would be a success," said the Russian child's elated mother. The Bengaluru kid's father said, "For us he'll still be alive somewhere. He'll live in the heart, kidneys, liver and eyes of some other children. He'll always be amid us."
Source: Medindia