Carriage House Plans: Donating Blood Requirements

Thursday, 29 November 2012

Donating Blood Requirements

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 13 liters of blood. After surgery, he was in the hospital for three months. Realising that the blood had saved his life, he made a pledge to start donating blood as soon as he turned eighteen.In the fifty-six years since his first donation, he has donated more than 1,000 times. This amount of donations is also a world record. After the first few donations, it was discovered that his blood contained a rare antibody that prevents infants who receive his blood from dying of Rhesus disease, a deadly form of anemia. This blood is given to one in ten women whose blood is not compatible with that of their children.The uniqueness of his blood also created the Anti-D vaccine. When he originally began donating blood, his life was insured for one million dollars. He reached his 1,000th donation in May 2011. His blood has helped to save around two million babies with hundreds of thousands of women being treated with his antibodies.