CHANDIGARH: The wife of a serving army soldier received a new lease of life after a successful kidney transplant on Sunday.
The Command Hospital at Chandimandir, in collaboration with the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences at Rohtak, successfully facilitated the retrieval and rapid air transportation of a kidney from a brain-dead road accident victim with aid from an Army Aviation helicopter.
The Western Command wrote on it’s official handle on X, "In a remarkable humanitarian effort, Command Hospital Chandimandir, under the aegis of HQ Western Command, in collaboration with PGIMS Rohtak, successfully facilitated the retrieval and rapid air transportation of a kidney from a brain-dead road accident victim on 16 May 2026."
The harvested organ was swiftly airlifted along with the medical team of Command Hospital, for an urgent transplant procedure at Chandimandir.
"An Army Aviation helicopter executed the critical life-saving mission from Chandimandir to Rohtak and back with precision and within stringent timelines. The harvested organ was swiftly airlifted along with the medical team of Command Hospital, Western Command for an urgent transplant procedure at Chandimandir," it stated.
It further read, "The successful transplant provided a new lease of life to the wife of a serving soldier, reflecting the operational efficiency, seamless civil-military coordination and humanitarian commitment of the Indian Army."
The Command Hospital, Chandimandir, a tertiary care institution under the Western Command, is the Army’s premier organ retrieval and transplant centre and has made pioneering advancements in this field.
In the past also, hospital has performed several organ harvesting and transplant operations, providing a new lease of life to critically ill people by harvesting kidneys, pancreas, liver, heart and cornea from brain-dead patients.
It was among the first in the country to undertake pancreas transplant, said to be among the most difficult surgeries.
A few days back, in a race against time, a 14-year-old Sudanese boy was saved after a donor heart was retrieved from Command Hospital, Chandimandir, and flown to New Delhi in just 29 minutes.
The coordination between the Indian Army, private medical teams, and aviation authorities marked the first-ever airborne organ mission of its kind in the north India spanning from a military hospital to a private healthcare facility.
The young boy battling a terminal heart ailment at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in New Delhi, reportedly had less than 24 hours to live. In a ray of hope, a compatible donor heart was identified at the Command Hospital as it was a 42-year-old brain-dead woman.
The hospital’s organ transplant team had also retrieved her liver, pancreas and kidneys, thereby enabling multiple recipients a new lease of life through organ donation.