TUMAKURU: In a noble gesture, a couple from Tiptur donated the vital organs of their thirteen-year-old daughter Chandana V who was declared brain dead after she did not respond to treatment following a road accident.
Surgeons at the Hassan Institute of Medical Sciences (HIMS), Hassan, under the supervision of the director Dr B Rajanna, harvested her heart, two kidneys, a pair of corneas and liver on Monday morning. Through a green corridor, the heart was shifted to a facility in Mysuru to be transplanted.
Back in her home town, Chandana, daughter of Vasanth Kumar and Divya of Halepalya area, was given a tearful farewell with people from different walks of life including bureaucrats led by Assistant Commissioner Saptarshi, tahsildar Pavan Kumar and DySP Vinayaka Shetigar taking part in the funeral procession on Monday. The doctors Dr Sridhar and Dr Vivechana among others also participated, recognising the exemplary and rare gesture of the girl's parents to donate her organs which could help patients in need.
"Ours was a joint family and one of our cousins had died of renal failure some years ago. We knew the hardship in getting organs and the whole family took a decision to donate our daughter Chandana's organs," Vasanth told TNIE. One of his uncles H K Devarajaiah managed to convince the family members, he added.
"Chandana wanted to become a heart surgeon and would inform us whenever she came across news of people dying of heart attacks. Now her heart will continue to beat and eyes continue to see after being transplanted to others," he said.
Before shifting the girl from Mahalakshmi Manjappa Multi speciality hospital in Hassan to HIMS for the procedure to harvest the organs, the doctors faced a challenge as Divya, the mother of the girl, was inconsolable. She still believed that her daughter would regain consciousness, informed Dr Anupama M K, anaesthetist at HIMS. Chandana's nine-year-old sister and four-year-old brother too were emotional as she used to take care of them like a mother, family sources said.
On the evening of July 23, Chandana, a class VII student at Vivekananda School, was pedaling her bicycle back home after finishing classes. She was eager to go home early to celebrate her brother's birthday. But a Rajasthan registration truck rammed her bicycle on the highway on Huliyar road, leaving her unconscious with a head injury.
She came from a family of weavers, with her father Vasanth weaving silk saris for a living. Friends of the family such as Girish S helped shift Chandana to the hospital in Hassan. The family spent over Rs 2 lakh on her treatment but she could not be saved.