Air ambulance brings 69-year-old to Chennai for organ transplant

CHENNAI: An air ambulance was used to transfer a 69 year-old patient with liver and kidney failure from Coimbatore to Chennai for a possible organ transplant.

The helicopter, which took off from the Coimbatore International Airport at 1.50 pm, landed at the Chennai airport at 3.50 pm.

B N Sridhar, CEO of Aviators Air Rescue, whose chopper was used, said it was the first time that an air ambulance was being used by the company in Tamil Nadu.

The patient was brought to Sri Ramakrishna Hospital on February 8 for treatment. He also had low blood pressure and high urea creatinine levels.

"The patient's urea creatinine levels did slightly improve since then, but shot up again five days ago. When his condition did not improve after four dialysis sessions, doctors recommended a kidney and liver transplant," said Sri Ramakrishna Hospital spokesperson.

"We heard that the possibility of an organ becoming available had come up in Chennai.So the family decided to move him," he said.