Heart delivered from Bengaluru to Chennai in 55 minutes!

Zee Media Bureau

Chennai: The Chennai traffic police on Sunday proved their efficiency when they created a green corridor required for an ambulance to deliver a brain-dead patient's heart in Bengaluru to another patient in a hospital in Chennai.

The green corridor was created from the airport to Global Hospital in Perumbakkam. The entire process, that is the journey from the hospital in Bengaluru to Chennai, including the flight duration, reportedly took a mere 55 minutes!

According to a report in the Times of India, Manivalan, inspector of Mambakkam police station said, “The flight from Bengaluru landed at 1.30pm, and an ambulance carrying the heart left the airport at 1.40pm. We covered the 15.5km distance in 14 minutes taking the Radial Road and the Medavakkam High Road. There were 24 policemen on duty, including one assistant commissioner and three inspector.”

Times of India also reported that the first time doctors attempted an inter-state organ transport was in March 2014. Since then, it is becoming more and more regular. "The biggest drawback of an inter-state transport is the timing of flights. Chartered flights are very expensive," said an official from the Tamil Nadu Organ Sharing Registry in an earlier interaction with TOI. Doctors say that a heart can be kept in cold storage for up to four hours, but the shorter the time taken for the transport, higher the chances of success.