Donor Heart Covers 95 km From Rohtak to Delhi in 63 Minutes via Green Corridor

A donor heart was transported 95 km from Rohtak in Haryana to a private hospital in Delhi's Shalimar Bagh in 63 minutes on Thursday, with an inter-state green corridor arranged to keep the ambulance moving without interruption.

The organ was retrieved at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) in Rohtak at 7.20 pm. The team carrying the heart departed the facility at 7.40 pm and arrived at Fortis Hospital in Shalimar Bagh at 8.43 pm.

Police forces in Haryana and Delhi coordinated the corridor, which spanned the two states, to ensure the ambulance faced no delays along the route.

The process began when the hospital was alerted through the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) network at 8.50 am about a heart being available for a B-positive recipient. Doctors at the Delhi hospital identified a suitable recipient at 9.55 am, and NOTTO confirmed the formal allocation at 12.03 pm.

The medical team left Delhi for Rohtak at 2.49 pm and reached PGIMS at 4.34 pm. After the retrieval procedure, the organ was brought back to Delhi under the green corridor arrangement and taken to the hospital for the transplant.

Naveen Sharma, vice president and facility director at Fortis Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, said executing an inter-state green corridor over a 95-km route demands extraordinary synchronisation between law enforcement authorities and medical teams.