In Australia, he is a hero, but in Europe, few know James Harrison, an Australian man credited with saving 2.4 million babies through his record-breaking blood plasma donations over six decades. This generous man passed away on February 17 at the age of 88, as reported by his family on Tuesday in a statement collected by AP.
Harrison, a retired employee of the New South Wales Railways Department, passed away in a nursing home on the central coast of the state, according to his grandson Jarrod Mellowship. Harrison was surprised to be recognized by the Guinness World Records in 2005 as the person who had donated the most blood plasma in the world, Mellowship said.
Despite his aversion to needles, he made 1,173 donations since he turned 18 in 1954 until he was forced to retire in 2018 at the age of 81. "He did it for the right reasons. As humble as he was, he liked the attention. But he would never do it for the attention," Mellowship commented.
The record was surpassed in 2022 by American Brett Cooper from Walker, Michigan.
The Australian Red Cross Blood Service said Harrison was known as the 'Man with the Golden Arm'.
He is credited with saving the lives of 2.4 million babies through his plasma donations, said the national agency responsible for collecting and distributing blood products, also known as Lifeblood.
Harrison's plasma contained a rare antibody known as anti-D. This antibody is used to make injections that protect unborn babies from hemolytic disease of the newborn, where a pregnant woman's immune system attacks her fetus's red blood cells. The disease is more common when a woman has Rh-negative blood type and her baby is Rh-positive.
Australia has only 200 anti-D donors who help 45,000 mothers and their babies annually.
Lifeblood's CEO, Stephen Cornelissen, said Harrison had hoped that someone in Australia would one day surpass his donation record. "James was a remarkable person, stoically kind and generous, committed to a life of donations, and captured the hearts of many people worldwide," Cornelissen said in a statement. "James believed his donations were no more important than those of other donors and that everyone can be special in the same way he was," Cornelissen added.
Mellowship said that his mother, Tracey Mellowship, Harrison's daughter, needed the treatment when he and his brother Scott were born.
Jarrod Mellowship mentioned that his own wife, Rebecca Mellowship, also needed the treatment when three of their four children were born.
It is speculated that Harrison developed high concentrations of anti-D as a result of blood transfusions he received during a major lung surgery at the age of 14.
"After the surgery, his father, Reg, told his grandfather that he was actually only alive because people donated blood," Jarrod Mellowship said. "On his 18th birthday, he started donating."
The use of anti-D in combating hemolytic disease of the newborn was not discovered until the 1960s.
Harrison was born in Junee, New South Wales, and is survived by a daughter, two grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.