James Harrison, who has saved over 2.4 million babies over the years, has died aged 88. The Australian man is popularly known as "the man with the golden arm".
Harrison rolled up his sleeves over 1,000 times to donate his plasma saving the lives of thousands of babies.
🇦🇺 | James Harrison OAM, un donante de sangre australiano que salvó a 2,4 millones de bebés donando su raro plasma, murió a los 88 años.
— Alerta News 24 (@AlertaNews24) March 3, 2025
Él empezó a donar desde los 18 años y lo hizo de manera ininterrumpida cada dos semanas hasta cumplir los 81 años.
Conocido cariñosamente… pic.twitter.com/hrgsKLdl3i
Harrison worked as a railway department clerk. He is also a Guinness World Record holder for donating the most number of plasma. He won the Guinness World Record in the year 2005. He has made 1,173 donations.
His record was broken by Brett Cooper from Michigan in 2022.
"He donated blood for the right reasons...he would never do something like this for just the attention," said Harrison's grandson Jarrod Mellowship.
His fear of needles did not hold Harrison back from donating his blood.
It was in 1954, that he started plasma donation and continued till he was 81.
"A donor for over 60 years, our very own Man with the Golden Arm donated 1,173 times, contributing to 3 million doses of anti-D for Australian babies," said the Australian Red Cross.
Also, Harrison's rare blood type which contained the antibody, anti-D, was used to make injections that protect unborn babies from the Haemolytic Disease of the Fetus and Newborn (HDFN).
HDFN or Haemolytic disease of the fetus is a condition where fetal red blood cells are destroyed due to blood group incompatibility. It happens when the mother’s antibodies attack the baby's blood, seeing it as a foreign body.
Harrison is survived by his sister Margaret Thrift, his daughter Tracey Mellowship, two grandsons and four great-grandchildren.
