Sri Ramakrishna Hospital on Saturday broke the Guinness World Record for ‘Most people to sign up as organ donors in eight hours’. The hospital had enlisted the support of 13,459 persons in the eight hours that ended at 4.05 p.m. The supporters had pledged to be organ donors.
But well before the deadline, the hospital, with help from the student volunteers of SNR Sons College, had managed to take the pledge from more than 13,000 persons, said K. Karunakaran, Principal.
The Official Adjudicator from Guinness World Records, Sofia Greenacre, said that the college had broken the record set on December 1, 2013 by Indian National Students Organisation at Sir Chhotu Ram Stadium in Rothak, Haryana, wherein 10,451 people had pledged their organs. The college had sent invite to 35 institutions in and around Coimbatore, including polytechnic colleges, to send their students above 18 years of age to the record breaking attempt and also pledge to donate organs after death. Twenty of the institutions responded, Mr. Karunakaran said.
The college students also reached out to various sections of society so that members of the public could also pledge to donate their organs, said Sri Jayalakshmi Suresh, a second year student.
Ms. Jayalakshmi said that she and 34 of her friends first pledged to donate organs on August 6, 2015, which was World Organ Donation Day. Their act caught the imagination of other students, who too jumped in. Quickly, it became a movement and turned into an effort to break the Guinness World Record.