Offers to donate organs poured in on A woman from Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday volunteered to donate her kidney to Siachen survivor Hanumanthappa Koppad, while an Navy ex-sailor and a retired CISF personnel offered to donate any organ necessary to save the brave soldier.
The Indian army soldier, who was pulled out alive from under 35-feet of snow that buried him for almost for a week in Siachen, is now in coma and is battling for his life in a hospital in Delhi. A medical bulletin has said he has pneumonia and liver and kidney dysfunction.
Nidhi Pandey, a housewife from UP’s Lakhimpur Kheri, contacted a local television helpline and told operators there that she wanted to contact Delhi’s Army Research and Referral hospital to donate a kidney to Lance Naik Koppad.
Indian Navy's ex-sailor S.S. Raju, meanwhile, has expressed his willingness to donate any organ of his body to save the life of "fellow-brother".
Retired CISF head constable Prem Swaroop, who lives in Delhi, reportedly reached the R&R Hospital with a similar offer.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited the Koppad at the hospital, has tweeted: "No words are enough to describe the endurance & indomitable spirit of Lance Naik Hanumanthappa. He is an outstanding soldier."
The jawan and nine of his colleagues with the 19 Madras Regiment were trapped under snow, when an enormous wall of ice almost a kilometre in length and 800m in width came crashing down on their post on February 3.
The army had said after the first day of searching that the chance of finding survivors was “very remote”. Hanuananthapa was pulled out alive on Monday, along with bodies of nine others, who died.