Kochi: Mathew Achadan, the Kerala autorickshaw driver whose life was saved in a landmark 2015 heart transplant made possible by a rare Indian Navy rescue mission, passed away on Monday. He was 57.

Achadan, a Chalakkudy native, had become widely known after receiving a donor heart flown from Thiruvananthapuram to Kochi in an unprecedented civilian medical emergency involving a defence aircraft.

He died early Monday morning following a heart attack.

He had been suffering from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and was undergoing treatment at Kochi’s Lissie Hospital, where doctors had said a heart transplant was the only option to save his life.

The donor heart came from S. Neelakanda Sharma, a 46-year-old lawyer who had been declared brain-dead at Thiruvananthapuram’s Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute of Medical Sciences.

With time running out and doctors facing a strict four-hour window for transplantation, conventional road transfer was considered unviable even with a green corridor. In a first-of-its-kind move in India, the Indian Navy deployed a Dornier aircraft to ferry the heart from Thiruvananthapuram to Kochi.

The funeral will be held after his children, who are abroad, arrive. The body has been kept at the mortuary of St. James Hospital, Chalakudy.