In Death, This 18-Year-Old Newspaper Vendor Gave Four Other People a Chance to Live

What do you do when your child is taken away from you much before his time? If you’re Deepak Dhaketa’s parents, you ensure that he lives on in others.

Deepak Dhaketa was an 18 year-old newspaper vendor in Indore. He was announced brain dead on the evening of the 27th, by doctors in Sri Aurobindo Institute of Medical Sciences (SAIMS). His grieving family was left struggling to understand the death of their young son.

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But after three counselling sessions with doctors, the family decided to honour their son is the most beautiful way possible – by donating his organs to others in need.

The doctors at SAIMS harvested four organs from the young man – two kidneys, his liver and his heart.The two kidneys were given two patients in Indore, one at SAIMS and the other at Choithram Hospital and Research Centre, while the heart and liver were transported to Delhi.

Image for representation only. Source: Flickr

Doctors and traffic police then got together to ensure ‘green corridors’ to transport Deepak’s heart and liver to the waiting patients.

Dr Sanjay Dixit, Secretary of the Indore Organ Donation Society told The Times of India, “Three green corridors were created within Indore city to transport the organs to CHRC and the airport. The first two were created at 11.23am and 12.02pm to transport Deepak’s liver and heart from to the airport — a distance of 11km that was covered in nine minutes. The third corridor was created simultaneously from SAIMS to Choithram Hospital, Indore, via a BRTS corridor for transporting a kidney,” he said.

Traffic police in Delhi too jumped into action, activating two green corridors – one for Deepak’s heart, and one for his liver. Sharad Aggarwal, Joint Commissioner, Traffic, said “The heart reached IGI airport around 1.15pm and was transported to Medanta Medicity in Gurgaon, covering about 18km within 16 minutes. The liver arrived at 1.58pm and it was transferred to ILBS, 11.4km away, in 15 minutes.”

A 48-year old suffering from end-stage heart disease was a recipient of the heart.

For the 55-year old man suffering from liver failure in Vasant Kunj, Deepak’s liver had arrived in the nick of time. His doctors at the Institute of Liver and Billiary Sciences (ILBS) say: “He was very critical. We had scheduled him for the life-saving procedure last month too but some complications arose.”

All recipients are reported to be stable post the transplant.

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