9.2km in 14 mins: Green corridor in Delhi beats peak traffic hours to transport live heart

The team in Fortis Escorts Heart Institute in Okhla was alerted by the NOTTO about a possible Cadaveric heart donor (brain dead) in AIIMS Delhi on Tuesday. They left at 5.48pm to retrieve the heart, and reached Fortis at 6.02pm.

In a stunning incident of medical intelligence, a green corridor from AIIMS Delhi in Safdarjung to Fortis Escorts Heart Institute in Okhla successfully transported a live heart in only 14 minutes. The green corridor covered a distance of 9.2km between the two hospitals within the aforementioned time during peak traffic hours, according to an official statement.

The boy who received the heart has been having heart problems for the last 1.5 years, and his condition had become critical.

The live heart was transplanted from a 55-year-old woman into a 19-year-old boy.

The team of doctors responsible for creating the green corridor was led by Dr ZS Meharwal, executive director and head of Adult Cardiac Surgery, VAD and Heart Transplantation Programme; Dr Vishal Rastogi, head, Heart Failure Clinic at FEHI, and Dr Naveen Saraf, director, Cardio Thoracic Vascular Surgery at Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, Okhla.

The team was alerted by the National Organ Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) about a possible Cadaveric heart donor (brain dead) in AIIMS Delhi earlier today. They left at 5.48pm to retrieve the heart from the top medical college, and reached Fortis at 6.02pm.

The boy who received the heart has been receiving treatment from Dr Meharwal. The patient has been having heart problems for the last 1.5 years, and his condition had become critical. Currently - after receiving the donor heart, he is under heart transplant surgery.