James Harrison (88) is dead His blood saved the lives of more than two million babies
Australian James Harrison saved countless newborn babies with his rare blood plasma over decades. Now the "man with the golden arm" has died at the age of 88.
05.03.2025, 18:07
05.03.2025, 19:48
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- They called him the "man with the golden arm".
- James Harrison donated his blood 1173 times, saving the lives of millions of babies.
- Now the Australian has died at the age of 88.
His blood plasma donations have saved the lives of 2.4 million babies over the past decades: Now Australian James Harrison has died at the age of 88, his family announced on Tuesday.
The former employee of the National Rail Authority was last cared for in a nursing home in New South Wales, where he died.
Harrison's blood plasma made him a hero to countless parents. It contained a rare antibody called anti-D, which protects unborn babies from hemolytic disease, a blood group incompatibility.
The pregnant woman's immune system attacks the fetus's red blood cells. The disease is most common when the mother's blood group is rhesus-negative and the baby's is rhesus-positive, and there are only 200 anti-D donors in Australia who help 45,000 mothers and their babies every year.
Harrison has an aversion to needles
Despite his aversion to needles, Harrison donated blood 1173 times after his 18th birthday in 1954 until he had to give up the practice in 2018 at the age of 81.
"He did it for the right reasons. As modest as he was, he liked the attention. But he would never do it for the attention," said his grandson Jarrod Mellowship.
His grandfather was surprised when he was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2005 as the person who had donated the most blood plasma worldwide. This record was broken in 2022 by American Brett Cooper.
The Australian Red Cross paid tribute to the hard-working donor. Harrison was known to them as the "man with the golden arm", according to the organization's blood donation service.
Harrison saved 2.4 million babies
Harrison's blood plasma donations have saved the lives of 2.4 million babies, according to Lifeblood, the national agency responsible for the collection and distribution of blood products.
Lifeblood managing director Stephen Cornelissen said James Harrison had hoped that one day someone in Australia would break his donation record.
He was a remarkable, stoically kind and generous person who had captured the hearts of many people around the world.
"James believed that his donations were no more important than those of other donors and that everyone could be special in the same way he was," Cornelissen explained.
Harrison was also able to help his own daughter
James Harrison was even able to help his own daughter. Mellowship said his mother Tracey Mellowship needed treatment with the anti-D antibody when he and his brother Scott were born.
Jarrod Mellowship said his wife Rebecca also received the treatment. The benefit of anti-D in fighting hemolysis disease in newborns was not discovered until the 1960s.
Doctors suspected that Harrison developed a high concentration of anti-D in his body at the age of 14 due to a blood transfusion during major lung surgery. "After the operation, his father Reg told Grandad that he was only alive because people had donated blood," said Jarrod Mellowship. "The day he turned 18, he started donating."
