Indian expat software engineer, 27, dies in Dubai accident, saves many lives with organ donation

Dubai: A 27-year-old software engineer recently lost his life after a road accident in Dubai but saved many other lives after his parents donated his vital organs. The deceased, Sharvil Katariya, was the only child of Indian expat couple Manish and Anjali Katariya.

The grieving parents told Gulf News that they decided to donate their son’s vital organs to keep him alive through others and save families of critically ill patients from facing the pain that they were experiencing from losing a loved one.

Recalling how tragedy struck the Indian expat family from Pune Maharashtra, Manish said Sharvil had met with a road accident on September 7. It happened when he was returning from a gym in Ibn Battuta Mall to their house in The Gardens community.

“He was walking back home as he doesn’t drive. On the way, he met with an accident, which we were not aware of for several hours,” the distraught father told Gulf News.

When he got late, initially the parents thought he would have met his friends from the neighbourhood.

“After a couple of hours, we went searching for him as he was not reachable on the phone. We looked around in his usual hangout places in the mall and our neighbourhood and checked with his friends. After about three or four hours we went to the Jebel Ali Police Station. It was when we gave his Emirates ID to the police that we got to know he was admitted to a hospital in Al Barsha after the accident.”

Severe brain injuries

Sharvil had sustained severe traumatic brain injuries. He remained in the hospital for a couple of weeks. “The best of the best neurosurgeons could not save him. His all other organs were working perfectly fine except the central nervous system.”

As it became evident that Sharvil would not return to his life, the family members decided to donate all his vital organs. “We took that decision so that he could save many lives and reduce the pain of the critically ill people in the GCC who are in need of these organs.”

Manish said his family already had a history of donating eyes. “Sharvil’s great-grandmother donated eyes in 1988. His grandfather also donated eyes in 2018.”

Multiple organ donation

In Sharvil’s case, all his vital organs – the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver and pancreas — could be donated.

His parents signed up for multiple organ donation with ‘Hayat’ –the UAE’s National Programme for Donation and Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues — on September 18.

To facilitate the donation procedures, Sharvil was transferred to a hospital in Abu Dhabi on September 21. The surgery to harvest his organs was done on September 24. He was cremated in the New Sonapur Hindu Cremation Ground in Jebel Ali on September 29 in the presence of a large number of friends, relatives and colleagues.

The devastated parents said they have come to terms with the reality and they now hope that their story will inspire others to perform the noble deed of organ donation. Around 600 lives have been saved through organ and tissue donation under the Hayat programme in the UAE.

“We do not know exactly how many people have been saved by Sharvil. Doctors said around seven to eight critically ill patients could be saved. We know that his heart was taken by doctors from Saudi Arabia for a patient there and all other organs were donated to patients in the UAE,” said Manish.

“This is the least we could do to keep him alive and save many lives at the same time.”

Many dreams shattered

The doting parents said they were dreaming of a bright future for their brilliant son but will now live in the fond memories of their son who was loved by all.

“He was a great son, a brilliant student,” said Manish, who works as the regional head of a German multinational company in Dubai.

Sharvil did his schooling at Delhi Private School in Dubai and went on to do his engineering courses in India and the US. He completed B-Tech Computer Science from the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) – Hyderabad and MS in Computer Science from Stony Brook University, New York.

The young software engineer had worked for two years each with multinational companies like Samsung Research and Development Institute in Bangalore, India and with Microsoft Corporation - Bellevue Washington, USA.

Having returned to Dubai earlier this year, Sharvil joined a Dubai-cum-Madrid based startup company. “He had plans to launch his own startup company later. He wanted to get some experience through his new job. He worked there for three months,” said Manish.

He said the family was also looking forward to Sharvil’s wedding. “His name was registered in matrimonial sites and we had started meeting girls.”

After the condolence meetings in Dubai, the parents are now in India to perform the last rites of Sharvil.