With arms good enough to play golf: Thodupuzha native's miraculous comeback to life from horror train accident

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Manu was beaming in confidence while strongly clutching the golf club in his once-stitched arms. In the first Transplant Games held at Kadavanthra Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium, Manu excelled in his performance attracting many eyes.

Manu lost his hands after some migrant labourers kicked him out of a moving train which ended up with his arms getting amputated below the lower limb portion. He replaced his two arms and took the country's first transplant surgery which was successfully done gifting Manu a new pair of arms.

Manu (40), the son of Thodupuzha Thommankuthu natives Rajagopala Pillai and Indira, owes all this to the family of Benoy (25), a native of Varapuzha who donated the arms, and the government's organ donation scheme, Mritasanjivani. The hands of Benoy, who was brain dead while being treated for injuries sustained in a car accident, were stitched into Manu.

Manu’s brothers Rajmohan and Sanu were also constant support and helped in his every track towards success. Manu can drive a scooter and car without much difficulty and can even take up a shovel to do some farming.

The train accident happened in 2013 and it was in 2015 that the 16-hour surgery was conducted in Kochi’s Amrita Hospital under the leadership of Dr. Subrahmanya Iyer. Blood vessels and nerves are sutured through microscopic surgery. With the Physiotherapy session, Manu regained power in his hands and started getting lured into the game of golf.

Manu is a Transplant Counseling Assistant at Amrita Hospital. He is married to Sreeja, a nurse at the same Amrita hospital. Manu's life-changing incident took place on March 23, 2013, while travelling on the Maveli Express from Aluva to Mookambika while working in an event management firm.

Inside the train, Manu saw some migrant workers smoking and questioned this. Furious by this, the same workers kicked Manu out of the train while he was about the reach the toilet. Manu fell on the tracks and the wheels ran over his arms amputating it in one gore incident. Manu was left in the tracks unnoticed till morning and it was some fishermen folks who found him in a pool of blood and provided help.