Photo by Luis Llerena, Stocksnap.IO
Some football fans believe that Johnny Unitas (1933-2002) was the best quarterback ever. The 1979 Hall of Fame player was often referred to as “the Man with the Golden Arm.” Wonder why? He set a record that stood for over fifty years: He threw at least one touchdown pass in 47 consecutive games. It was his expertise in leading the (then) Baltimore Colts to a victory over the New York Giants in the 1958 NFL title game that lead to many considering that playoff the greatest game ever played.
And yesterday I learned that there is another man who is also being referred to as “the Man with the Golden Arm.” But this doesn’t have anything to do with football.
It’s all about the blood.
James Harrison holds the Guinness World Record for the most blood donated by one person. He started donating when he was 18. He’s now nearly 80. He’s donated blood over 1000 times for an estimated total of over 130 gallons. That’s a lot of blood from one guy in Australia.
And it’s not just any blood. Mr. Harrison was just a boy of 14 when a serious operation caused him to need 13 units of donated blood. Doctors assume that some combination of those transfusions caused Mr. Harrison’s blood to produce a rare antibody that helps saves lives of unborn babies at risk of rhesus isoimmunization or Rh disease.
If a pregnant woman has RhD negative blood and her unborn baby has RhD positive, the woman’s body tries to produce antibodies to destroy the baby’s “foreign” blood cells. This can happen in a second pregnancy or may be due to the mom having had a prior blood transfusion. The rare antibody in Harrison’s blood enabled doctors to develop an injection called Anti-D that prevents pregnant RhD negative blood types from developing that “destroyer” antibody against the baby’s blood.
This hit close to home since one of my sisters is RhD negative, and unbeknownst to her, she’d had a blood transfusion when she was just three years old. The hospital had first transfused my sister with our mother’s blood (a common practice back then) which wasn’t compatible. So a second transfusion was necessary.
Fortunately, everything worked out for my sister’s two girls born in 1969 and 1971. But not knowing about the transfusion could have caused a tragedy.
It’s estimated that about 15% of the population is RhD negative, varying by ethnicity. Since the birthrate in Australia is around 300,000 annually, that means 45,000 pregnancies face this serious issue there each year. Since Mr. Harrison has been donating blood for fifty years, well…do the math. That means his miracle plasma has been used in more than two MILLION doses of the vaccine.
Think about impacting two million new lives. Golden, indeed.
To my readers: If you had a super power, what would it be and whom would you choose to help?
