Tech Is Saving Lives: Using A Drone To Transport Organs

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An experiment was recently conducted using a drone whereby organs were transported between Texas and Oklahoma. A drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is controlled remotely or by an onboard computer.

Drones can be used for a variety of purposes, such as videography and aerial photography, infrastructure, and land surveying, performing search and rescue operations, and delivering packages. Some drones are also equipped with weapons and used in military operations.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulates the use of drones in the United States.

How It Was Done

The particular drone used in this experiment was an unmanned vehicle designed to move up to 400 lb (181.44kg) of freight. If you’re not familiar with the term unmanned, it means the vehicle can be controlled and moved remotely.

The first trial where the drone was transporting a liver, kidney, and pancreas along with tissue and blood launched from the Texas Tech University’s  Reese Technology Center and moved over 350 miles (563km) to Oklahoma City.

In the second scenario, the drone traveled 471 miles (758km) to the international airport of San Antonio before it returned to the Reese Technology Center. For precautionary measures, a pilot was on board, although the flight was controlled from Dallas.

How Did It Go?

The goal of this experiment was to determine whether drone technology could provide quick and more efficient ways to transport donated organs. Organs have to be delivered as quickly as possible to the recipient.

Heart and lungs have to be transplanted in 8 hours, livers in 12 hours, and kidneys in 36 hours.

There haven’t been any reports of anything going wrong besides the noticed delays that were caused by wind changes. The delays were of about 10 minutes. These were nothing compared to the 20-hour drive by car or truck. With the drone, it reportedly took 12 hours and 15mins.

Despite the slight delays, the organs arrived much earlier by hours, meaning the recipients of the organs don’t have to wait too long.

Director of communications for the Texas Organ Sharing Alliance, Clara Guerrero deemed the organs viable upon arrival, meaning they could be transplanted. The organs used in this experiment weren’t transplanted but donated for clinical research.

The Verdict

We also found that a similar experiment was conducted in Canada and Dr. Prashanth Rajagopalan, MGM Healthcare Director, was concerned that flying some organs using a drone had a few challenges.

He mentioned that flying a heart at 30 to 60 feet in a box could damage the delicate tissue. A safer solution had to be created: using an organ transport box that could keep the organ intact meant it could arrive in the same healthy condition.

Guerrero said that drone technology in the delivery of organs could be used in the near future. The Consortium is awaiting approval from the FAA, which controls flight paths between cities.