In death, Dera Bassi youth gives new lease of life to five

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 18

A 29-year-old brain dead patient from Dera Bassi gave a new lease of life to five persons at the PGI here.

Ravi Kapoor had suffered profound injuries in a road mishap on the outskirts of Dera Bassi on the intervening night of July 13 and 14. A stray animal had hit his scooter.

“There cannot be anything more devastating than losing your family member in his prime. After their 29-year-old son was declared brain dead, the Kapoor family took a decision that no one wants to. Should Ravi become an organ donor? In the midst of their grief, they said yes,” stated Prof Vipin Koushal, Nodal Officer, Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (ROTTO), PGI.

Prof Koushal said, “Through their selflessness and magnanimity, they turned their gravest tragedy into a precious ‘gift of life’ and ‘gift of sight’ for five others at the PGI.”

On the fateful day, the injured Ravi was rushed to the Civil Hospital at Dera Bassi from where he was taken to the GMCH-32. Ravi’s condition being precarious, he was referred to the PGI on July 14. Ravi could not be retrieved from his critical condition and was declared brain dead on July 17.

Even in this darkest hour and amid his own grief, Ravi’s father Kuldeep Kapoor, along with other family members, showed exceptional courage by consenting to donate the organs of his young son.

“Our tragedy is too gruesome to be expressed in words. We don’t want to focus on Ravi being gone or how he died. We want to focus on the positive, and that’s what organ donation has taught us to do. It seems Ravi’s life had a purpose. His mortal journey has ended because others were to live because of him through organ donation. We are trying to draw consolation from the fact that in his short life, Ravi was able to do more than many can achieve in a lifetime of hundred years,” said the aggrieved father.

Following the family’s decision, transplant surgeons retrieved liver and kidneys from the donor, which were transplanted in three organ-failure patients. Two corneal blind patients will get their eyesight restored with the transplantation of the donor’s corneas, which have been retrieved. Ravi’s was the 15th case of organ donation at the PGI this year.