BENGALURU: In a historic first for Karnataka, the Namma Metro facilitated the city’s first-ever organ transport through metro service, becoming the second metro in India to undertake such an initiative. A donated liver was transported from Vydehi Hospital to Sparsh Hospital via Metro on Friday.
The operation took place on Friday evening, when a liver retrieved from a 24-year-old accident victim was urgently required for a patient suffering from severe hepatitis-related liver failure. The recipient had been on the waiting list for over two months.
The organ was first transported through a 5.5-kilometre ‘green corridor’ from Vydehi Hospital to Whitefield Metro Station, where it was brought by a team of doctors and seven medical staff at 8.38 pm. The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) then dedicated the last coach of a regular service train exclusively for the mission.
Metro security teams cleared the elevators and ensured uninterrupted movement at all stations. Metro personnel, along with an Assistant Security Officer (ASO), coordinated the security checks and documentation before the team boarded a train.
Departing Whitefield at 8.42 pm, the train covered 31 kilometres and more than 30 stations along the Purple Line in 55 minutes, reaching Rajarajeshwarinagar Metro Station at 9.48 pm. Another 2.5 kilometre ‘green corridor’ was created to transport the organ to Sparsh Hospital, where the transplant surgery began immediately and concluded at around 3 am.
“This metro journey was the difference between life and death. If we had taken the road, the organ could have been lost in Friday evening traffic,” said Dr. Mahesh Gopasetty, HOD and Senior Consultant – Liver Transplant and HPB Surgery at Sparsh. “We are grateful to BMRCL and the State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO) Karnataka for their swift and wholehearted support,” he said.
This is only the second time in the country that a metro train has been used to transport an organ for transplant. On January 18, 2025, the Hyderabad Metro Rail created a dedicated 'green channel' in Lakdikapul, to facilitate the swift transportation of the heart of a 34-year-old after he was declared brain-dead on January 17, 2025.