Mumbai|HL
The organs of a 17-year-old college student, whose life was abruptly cut short by a fall from an overcrowded local train, gave new lives to six individuals who desperately needed a transplant to live.
Bhavesh Digge returning home soon after participating in an International Yoga Day event at his college last Tuesday, but ended up with serious head injuries at a local hospital.
Bhavesh, who was an 11th standard student at the KJ Somaiya College in Vidyavihar, boarded a train from Wadala along with his friends like any other day. According to his friends, as the crowd swelled up in the compartment, he lost his grip and fell off the train between Kurla and Vidyavihar. By the time, they could rush to his rescue along with railway constables, he had bled a lot.
He was rushed to the BMC-run Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar where the doctors said his condition was critical. The BMC-run Rajawadi Hospital, which is neither an organ transplant or a retrieval centre, went out of its way to coordinate with the Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee (ZTCC) to shift him to the nearby registered centre at the Godrej Memorial Hospital in Vikhroli. “The family was extremely patient as the apnea tests were carried out in an interval of six hours,” said Abhijit Sinkar, transplant coordinator at Godrej Hospital.
The family decided not to let his death go in vain. “Even my wife willingly consented to donate his organs so that the lives of others could be saved,” said the father. They donated his heart, liver, kidneys and corneas.
Bhavesh’s heart also powered the Andheri’s Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital to kickstart its heart transplant programme, providing the city with a second such facility after the Fortis hospital in Mulund. Bhavesh’s liver was transplanted into a 76-year-old man at Global Hospital. One of his kidneys was given to a 29-year-old woman at Jaslok Hospital while another one was transplanted into a 42-year-old man at Godrej Hospital. The 28 cadaver donations in the city so far this year have facilitated nearly 80 organ transplants.
