“The flight landed at 2.19 p.m. and we were at the hospital by 2.36 p.m.,” a hospital official said.

While cadaver transplantation has become fairly common in the State, which has a better donation rate in the country, what must be remembered is that every time a donation happens, it is only because of the large-heartedness of the family, the co-operation of the police, and the skill of the medical professionals.

R. Muthupandi, a 36-year-old load man from Kovilpatti in Thoothukudi district, was grievously injured in a road accident, and was later declared brain dead.

His family decided to donate his organs.

On being informed of the availability of the heart, a team from Fortis Malar Hospital flew to Madurai to harvest the lungs of a brain dead donor, and flew back on a commercial flight to Chennai on Wednesday.

“The flight landed at 2.19 p.m. and we were at the hospital by 2.36 p.m.,” a hospital official said.

Starting at Apollo Speciality Hospitals, Madurai, at 11.35 a.m. on Wednesday, an ambulance, which was carrying Muthupandi’s heart and lungs and accompanied by three police vehicles, reached the airport within 16 minutes. The harvested organs were immediately airlifted to Chennai for transplant to patients waiting in two hospitals there.

On a request from Apollo Hospitals, Madurai City Traffic Police created a “green corridor” to facilitate smooth transport of the vital organs. As soon as the high-speed ambulance and police vehicles reached the airport, the boxes containing the harvested organs were shifted to the waiting aircraft, which left for Chennai within two minutes.

A senior doctor at the hospital said a liver and one kidney had been donated inside the hospital while the other kidney went to a beneficiary in Madurai Kidney Centre. The eyes were donated to Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai.

The recipient of the lungs was a 45-year-old woman from abroad who had pulmonary fibrosis. “She had been waiting for an organ here for four months. We finished the transplant around 4 p.m. and she is doing fine now,” said K.R. Balakrishnan, director, cardiac sciences, Fortis Malar.

The heart from the donor was allotted to Apollo Hospitals, Chennai.