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Rio de Janeiro: <\/b>When it comes to organ transplants, every second counts.<\/p>\n
That is why Brazilian firefighters said they took a helicopter to the top of a mountain in a national park in the south-eastern state of Rio de Janeiro to tell Ricardo Medeiros de Oliveira they had found him a much-awaited kidney.<\/p>\n
Oliveira, a 48-year-old tourist guide who had been waiting for a transplant for nine years, was hiking in a remote mountain area at 2280 metres earlier this month when he received a notification informing him that a compatible organ had become available.<\/p>\n
Given the urgency of the transplant and the difficulty of access \u2013 a descent on foot would have taken at least four hours \u2013 workers at the clinic where he had been undergoing dialysis requested help from the fire brigade which decided to pick him up directly.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would have lost this organ if he had not gotten to the hospital in time,\u201d firefighter spokesperson Major Fabio Contreiras said.<\/p>\n
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