'Live heart' transported from Bangalore to Chennai for transplantation

Bangalore, Sep 3: In a tie-up between two multi speciality hospitals located in different cities, a live heart from 37-year-old brain dead woman was transported from the city in a special flight to Chennai today.

Sources in BGS Global hospital on the outskirts of the city said the woman had suffered serious brain injury in an accident and was declared brain dead.

In a great gesture her family offered to donate the organs and immediately the live heart was removed and transport to Chennai to be transplanted on a different patient at Fortis Hospital in Chennai.

As the heart was kept beating using a mechanical system and need to be transplanted within six hours, the city police provided a 'signal free' passage to experts carrying the heart in the 40-km stretch from Kengeri, where the hospital is located, to Kempegowda International Hospital. The heart was transported in a special aircraft, police sources said.

Doctors in BGS hospital said a heart transplantation, if successful, can extend the life of a patient receiving the heart up to 20 years.