James Harrison, Australian blood donor whose ‘golden arm’ helped save 2.4 million babies, dies at 88

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — An Australian man credited with saving 2.4 million babies through his record-breaking blood plasma donations over six decades, has died, his family said Tuesday. He was 88.

James Harrison, a retired state railway department clerk, died in a nursing home on the central coast of New South Wales state on Feb. 17, according to his grandson, Jarrod Mellowship.

Harrison’s plasma contained a rare antibody, known as anti-D, which is used to make injections that protect unborn babies from hemolytic disease of the newborn, in which a pregnant woman’s immune system attacks her fetus’ red blood cells. The disease is most common when a woman has an Rh negative blood type and her baby’s is Rh positive.

Australia has only 200 anti-D donors who help 45,000 mothers and their babies annually.

Despite an aversion to needles, Harrison made 1,173 donations after he turned 18 in 1954 until he was forced to retire in 2018, aged 81.

“He did it for the right reasons. As humble as he was, he did like the attention. But he would never do it for the attention,” Mellowship said, adding his grandfather had been surprised to be recognized by Guinness World Records in 2005 as the person who had donated the most blood plasma in the world.

The record was beaten in 2022 by American Brett Cooper from Walker, Michigan.

Australian Red Cross Blood Service pays tribute to donor

The Australian Red Cross Blood Service said Harrison was renowned as the “Man with the Golden Arm.”

He was credited with saving the lives of 2.4 million babies through his plasma donations, the national agency responsible for collecting and distributing blood products, also known as Lifeblood, said in a statement.

Lifeblood chief executive Stephen Cornelissen said Harrison had hoped that someone in Australia would one day beat his donation record.

“James was a remarkable, stoically kind and generous person who was committed to a lifetime of giving and he captured the hearts of many people around the world,” Cornelissen said in a statement.

“It was James’ belief that his donations were no more important than any other donors' and that everyone can be special in the same way that he was,” Cornelissen added.

Antibody helps donor's family

Mellowship said his mother, Tracey Mellowship, Harrison’s daughter, needed the treatment when he and his brother, Scott, were born.

Jarrod Mellowship said his own wife, Rebecca, also needed the treatment when three of their four children were born.

There is speculation that Harrison developed a high concentrations of anti-D as a result of his own blood transfusions during major lung surgery when he was 14.

“After the surgery, his dad, Reg, told grandad you’re only really alive because people donated blood,” Jarrod Mellowship said. “The day he turned 18, he started donating.”

The application of anti-D in fighting hemolytic disease of the newborn was not discovered until the 1960s.

Harrison, who was born in New South Wales, is survived by his sister, Margaret Thrift, his daughter, two grandsons and four great-grandchildren.