Heart
Rotating image of the human heart.Creative Commons/CFCF

Delhi and Gurgaon police together created a 32-km green corridor on Saturday to transfer a heart in about 29 minutes, saving the life of a 16-year-old boy.

A green corridor from Sector 44 in Gurgaon to Okhla in south Delhi was created with the help of the traffic police to transfer the live heart from Gurgaon's Fortis hospital to Fortis Escorts Heart Institute in Delhi.

The ambulance, escorted by police vehicles covered the distance at a speed of 100 km per hour, according to The Times of India report.

"The recipient was waiting in the operation theatre. As soon as the heart arrived, the transplant began. It has been successfully transplanted into the 16-year-old and the patient is recuperating," a doctor said.

The heart belonged to a 30-year-old IT professional who was declared brain dead at around 8:48am on Saturday by Gurgaon Fortis Memorial Research Institute's doctors. The family gave permission for the organ transplant and the heart was rushed for transplantation as a human heart can be preserved for up to four hours.

With proper coordination the hospital managed to transfer the heart through the busy route.

"We had conducted a dry run with FMRI last August. As soon as the request for transportation of the organ was received, we contacted our counterparts in Delhi and first decided on the shortest possible route. A pilot gypsy and bike-borne personnel were deployed to clear the route for the ambulance," said the Gurgaon police commissione,r Navdeep Singh Virk.

"All traffic signals were put on manual mode and the ambulance was allowed to run signal-free," said special commissioner of police, Delhi traffic, Muktesh Chander.