A Man Who Donated Blood Over 1000 Times

James Harrison, OAM, also known as the Man with the golden arm, is a blood plasma donor from Australia. His over 1000 donations throughout his lifetime have saved over two million unborn babies from Rhesus disease.

James Harrison was born in 1936. At the age of 13, he underwent a major chest surgery to extract a lung with metastasised pneumonia, and required 12 litres of blood. After surgery, he was in the hospital for three months. Realising the blood had saved his life, he made a pledge to start donating blood as soon as he turned eighteen, the then required age.

Mr. Harrison started donating in 1954 and after the first few donations it was discovered that his blood contained an abnormally strong and persistent antibody called Rh_o(D) Immune Globulin. Rh_o(D) IG is given to Rh(D) negative mothers of unknown or Rh(D) positive babies during and after pregnancy which prevents her from creating antibodies to the blood of a Rh(D) positive child. This antigen sensitization and subsequent incompatibility phenomenon is called Rhesus disease, a form of the hemolytic disease of the newborn (HDN).

Through the donations of his plasma, Mr. Harrison helped prevent thousands of born and unborn children from dying of HDN. This uniqueness was considered so important, that his life was insured for one million dollars after this discovery and the following research based on his donations created the commercial Anti-D immune globulin commonly known as RhoGAM. His blood plasma derivatives has since been given as treatment to one in ten pregnant women whose blood is not compatible with that of their children.

As blood plasma, in contrast to blood, can be donated as often as every 2–3 weeks, he was able to reach his 1000th donation in May 2011. This results in an average of one donation every three weeks during 57 years. Commenting his then record number:

I could say it's the only record that I hope is broken, because if they do, they have donated a thousand donations.

—James Harrison.

His donations were estimated to have helped to save over 2.4 million babies with pregnant women being treated with his antibodies, including his own daughter Tracey.

Harrison has received an Order of Australia medal (OAM). He was nominated for Australian of the Year, though he did not win. In 2011, he was nominated in the New South Wales Local Hero division of the Australian of the Year awards.