Dubai: The organs of a 15-year-old boy, who was a Dubai resident and a former student here, were donated to four people after he died in an accident in India.
Vishal Satheesh was declared brain-dead two days after he was knocked down by a speeding car in Kerala’s capital city, Thiruvananthapuram, on Saturday.
Vishal, who studied in Our Own English School in Dubai till grade 3, was walking back home from a class, when the accident took place.
His father, T. Satheesh Nair, an employee of Emirates airline for over 30 years, was in Kerala for a short break to attend a wedding when his younger son met with the accident.
The 10th grade student had gone to attend a special class on Saturday and was walking back when a speeding car, in an attempt to avoid hitting an auto rickshaw bearing down on it, swerved and knocked down the boy, Nair told Gulf News over the phone on Wednesday.
Though he underwent a surgery, Vishal did not recover and was declared brain-dead on Monday evening.
The grieving father said he did not think twice when someone from the hospital inquired if he would agree to donate his son’s organs.
“When I heard I would not get my son back, I instantly agreed,” said the father, who has been receiving huge appreciation for his gesture from the government and people back home after Vishal’s heart, liver and kidneys were donated to four patients in different parts of Kerala on Tuesday.
His wife was in agreement with his decision.
Vishal’s elder brother, Essesse, a BBA student in American College of Dubai, flew down to Kerala after the accident.
Both the sons and the mother had relocated to their hometown after Essesse went to grade 10. Though the latter returned to Dubai for higher education, Vishal and his mother stayed back in India.
“They still have Dubai residence visas,” the father said.
Vishal, said the father, was a quiet and obedient boy. “He was a bright student … very active in the extra-curricular field. He was an NCC (National Cadets Corps) cadet and an athlete who won many prizes.”
Kerala’s health minister, K.K. Shylaja, visited the parents to console them and express her appreciation of their noble gesture. Friends, relatives and others have also saluted the parents for inspiring others to donate organs.
Living on
Vishal now lives on in four adults.
His heart is beating inside Sandhya, 27, a lab technician who was suffering from a rare heart disease.
The teenager’s harvested heart was transplanted after being transported from Thiruvananthapuram to Kochi by a Naval Air Ambulance on Tuesday.
The air ambulance was arranged after the intervention of Kerala’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to ensure that it reaches the recipient in time, said Aneesh P.V., an organ transplant coordinator with Kerala Network of Organ Sharing (Mrithasanjeevani) which facilitates the organ transplantations in the state.
Vishal’s heart was transplanted into Sandhya, the mother of a nine-month-old baby, after a five-hour-long surgery at Lisie Hospital in Kochi.
Aneesh told Gulf News it was he who had requested Vishal’s father donate the organs after the hospital declared the child brain-dead.
Vishal’s kidneys were donated to two patients, Fakhrudheen Panavoor, 39, and Rajendran Vithura, 56 — who were admitted to Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College where Vishal died.
Another woman, Priya, 30, received his liver at KIMS Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram.
Aneesh said they were all registered patients who required immediate transplant.
