Jagatsinghpur: Birendra Prasad Swain (58) was accorded a guard of honour by Odisha police during his funeral in his native village in Jagatsinghpur district as in his death following a road accident he gave new hope to two persons by donating his kidneys.
Hundreds of villagers, local MLA Ramakant Bhoi, and other leaders attended the last rites of Swain, who was a social worker and the president of the panchayat unit of the BJD.
A native of Redhua, he sustained critical injuries after being hit by a speeding car at Raghunathpur Bazaar on the Cuttack-Paradip state highway on Friday night while returning from a marriage feast. He was admitted to SCB Medical College and Hospital, Cuttack, but was declared brain-dead on Monday.
His family then decided to donate his kidneys and, following which SCBMCH authorities contacted the State Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO), initiating the preservation process. While one kidney was sent to AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, where it was transplanted into 26-year-old Tusharkanta Barik from Khurda’s Tangi locality, the other kidney got transplanted into 52-year-old Shradhanjali Parida from Maheswarpur in Jajpur district at SCB MCH.
The local police facilitated a green corridor for the transportation of one kidney to AIIMS, Bhubaneswar.
“A relative suggested that we donate his organs. Our family was ready for it too. We are happy that my father’s organs could save two lives,” his son Subhasish Swain, a software engineer in Hyderabad, told the media.
