In Mumbai, 11-year-old dies after fall, father donates her organs

The girl’s heart travelled through a Green Corridor and reached Mumbai in less than two hours Wednesday. (Representational)

An 11-year-old girl from Nashik, who lost her life after falling off a staircase while playing, breathed life into five others after her father, a farmer, agreed to donate her organs. The girl’s heart travelled through a Green Corridor and reached Mumbai in less than two hours Wednesday. The recipient of her heart is a seven-year-old, also from Nashik. With the new Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (ROTTO) registry, waitlisted patients in different parts of Maharashtra, as well as Gujarat, Goa and Rajasthan, can receive organs brought via a Green Corridor following cadaver donation.

On Tuesday, the 11-year-old was declared brain dead in Nashik Civil hospital due to right cerebral arterial infarct. She had collapsed in school on September 15. Her father was counselled so that he agreed to donate the child’s organs and the girl was transferred to Rishikesh hospital for organ retrieval. Following close-coordination between different cities, social workers, doctors and government agencies, a Green Corridor was created on Wednesday from Nashik to Mumbai to bring the girl’s heart to Fortis Hospital, despite heavy rain. A medical team with the retrieved heart started from Nashik at 12.14 pm and reached Mumbai by 2.03 pm covering 158 km. A team of traffic police personnel cleared the way for the ambulance’s journey.

The heart was transplanted into a seven-year-old boy from Sinnar, Nashik, who suffered from a rare congenital heart disease called Uhl’s Anomaly that causes loss of muscle functions in the heart. The child had been waiting since July and travelling between Pune and Mumbai regularly for treatment. The liver of the 11-year-old girl, a Class VI student, was donated to a patient in Pune. The organ was taken through a Green Corridor. The kidneys were sent to Solapur for another waitlisted patient.