Driver who was to donate liver & kidney to Vilasrao Deshmukh dies

CHENNAI: The 31-year-old school van driver, who was declared brain-dead and whose liver and kidney were to be transplanted in Union minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, died at 2.45am ahead of the transplant.

Doctors at the Government General Hospital (GH) said he suffered a cardiac arrest.
Although his family had agreed for organ donation at 9 pm on Monday, they later refused by the time the police arrived at the hospital a little after midnight. An ambulance from the Global Hospitals was stationed outside the GH's casualty ward.

"We went back and forth, but there was nothing we could do. We took caution with every step because the van driver's accident was a medico-legal case. It delayed the process a little and we lost the patient,"" said a doctor at the hospital.
On Saturday, the driver was hit by an ambulance while he was riding his bike on East Coast Road. He was brought to the Government General Hospital.

The same day, doctors at the Global Hospitals had flagged a "super ultra emergency case" for Vilasrao Deshmukh. The 67-year-old minister, diagnosed with liver cancer, was flown to Chennai by an air ambulance last Tuesday. -TOI-