Flight held at Shanghai for heart transplant mercy dash

A packed passenger plane was held at Shanghai Pudong Airport for more than an hour, waiting for a heart urgently needed by a transplant patient in central China's Hubei Province, reports thepaper.cn.

China Eastern Airlines received a call from a doctor Guo at around 18:00 on Wednesday requesting help to get the organ from a donor in Hangzhou to the recipient in Wuhan

China Eastern Airlines agreed to wait for Guo and coordinated other departments to facilitate a green channel for him and the life-saving heart.

Doctor Guo left Hangzhou at 21:36 on Wednesday, and then drove two hours to Shanghai. Flight MU2520, which had been due to leave at 22:45, finally took off just after midnight. Guo reached the hospital in Wuhan at around 02:00 on Thursday morning. It's understood the transplant surgery proved a success.

Despite being delayed by 80 minutes, the 147 passengers and crew members on board expressed their support for the doctor, saying the wait was worth it to save a life.