BENGALURU: An accidental fall from a cot while asleep shattered the family of 53-year-old Krishnappa, a daily wage worker and the sole breadwinner. He sustained a head injury and was later declared brain-dead at the Trauma and Emergency Care Centre (TCC) attached to Victoria Hospital. But in a noble gesture, his grieving wife and five children donated his organs and became saviours for more than seven people.
This is the first retrieval of organs at TCC in Victoria, though it got an organ donation licence in April this year. There were 12 potential (brain-dead) donors at TCC since April, but their families had refused to donate organs.
On Sunday, Krishnappa’s liver was transplanted into a 65-year-old male, and heart valves into two people in Narayana Hrudayalaya, the right kidney was donated to a 25-year-old male at INU Hospital and left kidney to a 32-year old male at JSS Hospital.
The corneas, which can benefit two people, are being donated to Minto Eye Hospital, while the skin, which can benefit multiple patients, was donated to Victoria skin bank, according to Lijamol Joseph, chief transplant coordinator of State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation of Karnataka (SOTTO) (formerly Jeevana Sarthakathe) of the state health department.
Life was going well for Krishnappa, who toiled hard to provide quality education and a bright future to his five children -- three daughters and two sons -- with the eldest child in Class 10. But on the morning of June 23, he accidentally fell off the cot at his home in Nelamangala, sustaining a head injury. He was rushed to Nelamangala Government Hospital, where he was referred to TCC at Victoria Hospital. But doctors’ efforts to save him failed and he was certified brain-dead the next day.
The grief counsellor approached the family for organ donation the same day, and after their consent, the organs were retrieved at 2.30 pm Saturday. Krishnappa’s body, which was kept at Victoria Hospital mortuary, was handed over to his family on Sunday morning for cremation.