Drunk driving victim is now organ donor Nimisha Mane, involved in the March 30 accident, succumbed to her injuries

Drunk driving victim is now organ donor

Nimisha Mane, involved in the March 30 accident, succumbed to her injuries

Nineteen-year-old Nimisha Mane, hurt in the drunk-driving accident on Juhu Tara road two weeks ago, succumbed to her injuries at Nanavati hospital on Saturday. Now, her parents have decided to keep her alive by donating her kidneys, liver and skin. Another 19-year-old girl who was on dialysis at Nanavati hospital is one of three people who will benefit from the noble gesture of the Mane family. Dr Harshad Parekh, the neurosurgeon who was treating Mane, said, “Nimisha had significant brain damage, which kept on getting worse. We had kept her on life support but she never managed to come out of coma. We had informed the family last week that chances of her coming out of the ordeal alive were dim.” The family, initially shocked by the news of Nimisha’s certain death, was then counselled by doctors for organ donation. “We did a two-step examination to confirm she was brain dead. One examination was done at 11am, and the other confirmatory test was done at 5pm, after which we declared her brain-dead,” said Dr Sharad Seth, head of the nephrology department at Nanavati hospital. Dr Seth, who is also the transplant co-ordinator at Nanavati, then interacted with Zonal Transplant Co-ordination Committee and found that Jaslok hospital required the other kidney and liver. Jaslok’s team was then invited to the hospital for further procedures. According to doctors, Nimisha’s family was co-operative and the organ transplant procedures went on smoothly. The Santacruz police station gave the no objection certificate for organ retrieval. “The 19-year-old girl who received a kidney is doing very well now,” said Dr Parekh. The other kidney and liver went to Jaslok hospital patients, while the skin was donated to another private hospital in the western suburbs. “The Mane family is brave to have taken such a noble step at a time of such adversity. It should be encouraging for others. The family has saved the life of a 55-year-old man who needed an urgent liver transplant,” said Dr Abhay Nagral, the liver transplant surgeon at Jaslok hospital. The transplant surgeries started at 9pm on Friday and went on till 4am Saturday. “Her eyes were badly damaged in the accident. We couldn’t take them for donation,” said Dr Seth. Nimisha is the seventh cadaver donor in Mumbai this year. While the city saw a fall in number of donors last year, the cadaver donation has picked up in 2012. The total number of donations in 2011 was 10. Interestingly, the number of cadaver donations in 2009 was 36, which dipped to 20 in 2010. “In the last three months we have received seven organ donors, from whom we got 13 kidneys and 5 livers. The numbers of donors so far is more than half of what we saw in 2011. We are hoping that more people like the Mane family come forward,” said Dr Sujata Patwardhan, general secretary, ZTCC Mumbai.