WEBVTT - The Man with the Golden Arm 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:07.680 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:14.000 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.000 Chuck and it's just us And that's okay because we're 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.560 gonna get bloody here on this episode of Stuff you 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:21.040 Shouldn't Know. 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:24.239 I just had a cockroach crawl over my barefoot. 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:27.160 I've got a cockroach story for you. First of all, 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.400 how are you doing? Be okay with that cockroach experience 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:30.960 you just had? 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:33.360 It's it's not my favorite thing. 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:36.519 Secondly, why are you barefoot? We're working? 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:39.320 Oh? You know, I don't put on cheese onless I 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:39.559 have to. 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:44.720 Thirdly, you want to hear my cockroach story? Uh? 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:48.920 Yes, Although I will quickly say that's not the worst. 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:51.640 The worst cockroach story I've ever had is when I 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:54.840 saw one as I was turning out the light fall 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:58.040 from a ceiling above my bed. And then the light 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:00.200 went off, and then. 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.760 Right you heard the cockroach go nighty night, what's yours? 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:06.679 It just happened today. I don't know if this is 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:08.760 my worst or not. It's pretty bad. I went to 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:12.840 go pour coffee from our coffee pot and a roach 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.840 spilled out along with the coffee into my mug. It 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:19.920 was like in the port, the top that you can 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:22.920 take off. He was in the little spout. Apparently. 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:26.120 I just remembered I had the worst one, because I 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:30.200 think this tops yours. I drank a cockroach in some 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:31.160 red wine one time. 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:33.880 That's the worst one. There you go. Could you feel 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:35.880 it crawling around in your gullet. 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:39.000 Just swimming through the red wine in my mouth? And 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:41.600 I just said it was And I'm sure everyone just 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:43.680 heard me stomping in the back. 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:47.960 Tell me you didn't, Dude, you want me. 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:49.880 To get up in the middle of a recording and 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.280 save a cockroach, I'd wait, Yeah, no, I don't save cockroaches. 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:55.800 I don't feel bad about it either. We've talked about 0:01:55.800 --> 0:02:00.640 this before. I think please tick, mosquitoes, cockroaches, everything. 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:04.639 Always on fleas, ticks and mosquitoes. I'll leave alone. 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.680 I know you've claimed that many times. We all know 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:08.160 you're better. 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.880 I saw a cartoon. It was it was the Annual 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:16.160 Meeting of Insects people like, and they switched to the 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:18.480 next panel and it was just a butterfly sitting alone 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:19.560 at a conference table. 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:23.520 That's cute, but you know, you can't save the cockroach 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:26.320 if they just crawled into the cup. I might think 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:27.480 about it, but they don't. 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:32.160 Okay, I disagree. I try to get them with a 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:34.960 paper towel, lightly pick them up and throw them outside 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:36.560 and say, Sionara. 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:39.200 Sure they suffer no damage? 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.960 Probably not. They're pretty tough. Okay, this one was all right, 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:48.480 let's get let's get that's terrible. Let's get to this 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:53.240 episode because this is a profile in courage and heroism 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:56.160 of an everyday guy who found out he was a 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:58.280 little more special than the rest of us and he 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:03.640 put it to good use. Inness that's right, James harris Son. 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:05.960 Is that? Am I saying that correctly? 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.840 I think so. Australia's own James Harrison, who is probably 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:13.560 the most prolific blood donor in maybe human history. He 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.200 donated blood one and seventy three times over a sixty 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.240 year period and is credited with saving the lives of 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:24.160 two point four million babies. Yeah, referred to as the 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.640 man with a Golden Arm. And we need to back 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.800 up a second. You can either pause and go listen 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:32.239 to our episode on blood types. 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.040 That was a live one, right, I think so, or. 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:39.120 You can listen to a quick explanation of what RH 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:44.880 disease is and what our AH incompatibility is because when 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.360 you have a blood type you've you've heard now we 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:50.200 know that you can be like positive or negative, like 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.760 oh positive, oh negative? That negative or positive is your 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:58.240 r H factor so named after the the r H 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:02.360 reesis monkey inadvertently not correctly named. And so that's a 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.200 rh factor. That's it's a protein found on the outside 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:07.000 of your red blood cells and then you either have 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:09.920 it or you don't. It's an inherited thing. R eighty 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.080 five percent of babies that are born or are H positive, 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.880 which means they have that protein, but you either have 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.880 it or you don't, and that becomes incompatible when it 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:24.360 doesn't match up with what your mom has. 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:28.400 Right, Yeah, that's a real problem because if your mom 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.120 is RIGE negative, meaning she doesn't have those proteins, her 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.599 body's never been exposed to those proteins. So when she 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:38.919 has a baby developing in her stomach her womb I 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:44.000 guess you'd call it, and some of those red blood 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:48.800 cells across the placental barrier, her body flips out. It's like, 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:51.480 what is this? We need to create some antibodies to 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:55.800 attack this, and those antibodies attack the red blood cells, 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.279 the protein on the red blood red blood cells, the 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.719 rh factor and and tear them apart. And that is 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:04.039 not what you want happening to your feet as well. 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:05.560 It's developing in your room. 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.279 No, it's not. And just to be clear, it's not 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:10.440 it's not a problem at all to have a negative 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:15.520 blood type. Is just this incompatibility in pregnancy is a problem. 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:20.839 And on the first pregnancy this can happen and everything 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.200 is likely going to be okay. It's the subsequent pregnancies 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.240 that are the issue. And so to prevent this from happening, 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:33.279 the pregnant person is giving immunoglob globulin. I have such 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:36.080 a hard time saying that. And that's that prevents those 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:39.200 antibodies from forming and attacking. And it's a it's a 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:42.159 done in the way of a plasma injection called anti 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:43.400 d right. 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:46.200 And the reason why the first birth is okay is 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:50.800 because the mom's body is still generating antibodies because again 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:54.000 these are brand spank and new for her immune system. 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:58.279 And so when the first baby comes out, her immune 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.479 systems like, yeah, that's right, walk away, walk away. And 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:03.760 then when the second baby comes it's ready, and that's 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:06.680 when it really becomes a problem and it can result 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:13.120 in and very frequently results in stillborn babies newborn deaths 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:18.520 as well. So if it wasn't bad enough, just add 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.240 dying babies to it and it suddenly becomes much more urgent. 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:24.520 And it's not that rare either as the thing. 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:27.000 Yeah, I mean, they didn't even know about this until 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.279 nineteen thirty nine, the RH factor. Before that, it was 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:34.120 just the ABO system. But there was a woman who 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.479 had given birth to a stillborn baby, was given a 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:41.000 transfusion from her husband and had an adverse reaction despite 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.000 having a matching blood type. So that's when scientists figured 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:46.520 it out, like, oh hey, there's another factor here, and 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:50.720 it's this negative and positive RH factor. And another Australian, 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.240 a guy named John Gorman, a doctor, was working in 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:59.599 blood banking, and this was in nineteen fifty eight. He said, hey, 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.400 I think that if we give these mothers an RH antibody, 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:06.720 they wouldn't make any of that antibody themselves. So it's 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.080 kind of like a weird reverse treatment. 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:13.280 Right, Yeah, And it's really worth saying it's weird because 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:16.440 they don't know still to this day, exactly how it 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:23.280 happens or how it protects developing fetuses infants. They think 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.880 the best guess is that these antibodies that they consider 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:31.440 passive antibodies, they don't attack the red blood cells of 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:35.560 the developing child. Instead, they actually attached to it an 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:41.560 active protective bayer layer, essentially like obi Wan saying to 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:44.760 the mom's immune system, these are not the red blood 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.480 cells that you seek, not the factor that you're interested in. 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:51.720 Beat it, in the words of Obi Wan, like I said. 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:57.520 So, doctor Gorman and his research partner they tested this 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:02.440 idea out on prisoners, on male prisoners at Sing Sing 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:07.440 Prison in New York, injecting that RH negative into them 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:11.080 with anybodies and then measuring the response, and they found 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:13.960 that at worked and that it was safe. Obviously not 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:17.880 the most ethical thing theoretically, I guess these were volunteers, 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:22.000 but you know how that goes. But the question still remained, 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:25.120 like will it save a baby? And it turns out 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:27.840 that his sister in law, Kath was a nurse and 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:32.520 was RH negative and his brother, her husband, was RH positive, 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.360 and they were like, hey, will be the guinea pigs 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:36.240 in this one. Let's do it. 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.720 Yeah. So the problem was is that John Gorman's brother 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:44.240 and sister in law. Kath and Frank lived in London 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.360 at the time, and Gorman, like you said, was in 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.720 America even though he was Australian. It's a brain buster, 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.680 I know. But the upshot of it is that Gorman 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:59.720 sent this anti d inoculation essentially that he was testing 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:03.600 out to the Gormans in London. They had to go 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.760 to Heathrow to pick it up. John Gorman had to 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:09.400 get it to them so quickly. He didn't even fill 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:11.640 out paperwork. He just sent it like it was yeah, 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:14.720 I don't know, like a deodorant, a push pop or 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:18.280 something like that. Push, yeah, deodorant great. And they had 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.200 to go to Heathrow to pick it up. That's how 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:22.959 time urgent this was, and if there was, if it 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:25.840 wasn't urgent before, it was when they got to Heathrow, 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:28.880 because Kath went into labor when they were picking up 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:29.560 this injection. 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:33.760 Yeah, so they were somehow managed to talk this doctor 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:37.160 into administering this treatment, which that's probably the most surprising 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:39.920 thing that this doctor went along with it, but that 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.880 doctor did, and Kath Gorman had a healthy son, and 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.680 then she had another healthy son a year later after 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:50.000 giving this injection and they were like, hey, it worked, 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.559 and now it's given to women in the twenty eighth 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.880 week of pregnancy and if the baby has found out 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:00.000 to be RH positive, given again within seventy two hours 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:00.840 of giving birth. 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:03.800 Yeah. I think one of the other things that stood 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:08.240 out to me about Katherine Frank Gorman's story is that 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:12.880 the doctor who gave them the injection was persuaded to 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:16.480 do so also by a team of a rival team 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:19.560 from Liverpool who were also working on some sort of 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:24.640 antidote to RH factor disease. So they basically said like, 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:29.000 this is actually going to launch John Gorman into the 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.319 lead here, even though we're competing to come up with this, 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:34.800 but seriously, you should you should inject her with this. 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:35.840 It's going to be great. 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:36.480 Yeah. 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.720 So they put saving babies before their own career. 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:44.839 That's great. Yeah. I think Gorman ended up saying that 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:48.360 it was the most cost effective drug ever produced in 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:50.880 fifty years. There have been no fatalities from this treatment, 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:53.959 and he said it saves about a billion dollars every 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:56.920 year by preventing high risk RH pregnancies. 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:01.120 Yeah, so it was really something. The thing is, you 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:05.080 still need to this day human blood to make the 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:13.000 anti d immunoglobin. Yeah, globulin, it is hard to say, chuck, yeah, inoculation. 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:14.679 Yeah, plasma technically yeah. 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:18.040 Yes, And this is where James Harrison comes in. But 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:20.440 he doesn't come in yet, dear people, because you were 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:22.400 going to have to pay through the nose to get 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:46.160 to him by listening to these commercials. Okay, everybody, thanks 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:48.959 for listening to those commercials. We're back and it's time 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.720 that we really introduce you to James Harrison. He was 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.320 an amazing guy, but I feel like we should go 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:57.880 back to before he was a full guy, when he 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:00.360 was just a fourteen year old, because he to win 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:02.960 a really big time surgery and I could not find 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:06.640 out why, but he had to have an entire lung 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:08.760 removed again at age fourteen. 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:11.920 Yeah, there's not a lot about the guy. Even when 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.400 you Reada's obituary, the just details are scant, and I 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:17.440 sort of feel like he probably wanted it that way 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.520 as a kind of a low key awesome dude. But yeah, 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:23.720 at fourteen, he had a lung removed. He was in 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:26.760 the hospital for three months and during that time he 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:31.920 required almost two gallons of blood, thirteen units of donor blood, 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.800 a human adult has about ten units of blood, so 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:36.880 a fourteen year ol wouldn't even have that much. So 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:43.120 basically a full plus transfusion of his blood that saved 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:45.640 his life and comes out of it as a fourteen 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:48.520 year old, and his dad explains what happened, and he's like, 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:51.200 I know my calling, Like when I come out of 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:52.880 this and I'm able to be old enough to give 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:55.600 blood and plasma, like that's what I'm going to do 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:56.480 with my life. 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.600 Yeah, his dad was already a blood donor too, so 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.840 I'm I'm sure it was gratifying for him and James Harrison. 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:05.520 I guess he had to wait a few years before 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:08.760 he was eligible to donate blood, but once he did, 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:12.120 he started doing it right off the bat, right when 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:16.200 he could. But it took another eleven years. I guess 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:19.200 when he was in his early thirties, he has something 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.000 like that, we're about to be thirty before the doctors 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:25.200 were like, hey, hey, this guy's something special. He's got 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:30.800 some dynamite plasma because they think when he got all 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.480 of that blood he was RH negative, but he got 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.400 a lot of RH positive blood and his body started 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:41.760 making RH positive antibodies that can just knock your socks off. 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:46.199 So this guy, James Harrison, when he was fourteen, essentially 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.520 acted inadvertently as a human test tube or Petrie dish 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:53.880 where they put together RH negative and RH positive, shook 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:57.040 it up, and this guy started making antibodies for the 0:13:57.040 --> 0:13:59.600 rest of his life that would go on to save 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:00.800 baby Yeah. 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:04.079 I mean, his stuff was so good and he was 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.960 so prolific and dedicated, and we'll talk more about that. 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:10.760 There was a doctor that said in the Sydney Morning 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:14.160 Morning Herald in twenty eighteen that every ampuel of anti 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:16.560 d ever made in Australia has James in it. 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:18.319 Yeah, primo stuff. 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:21.720 Pretty cool. So the two point four million babies he 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.840 saved not an exact number obviously, but they basically did 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:29.520 a calculation where they analyzed birth data from nineteen sixty 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.840 four moving forward, accounted for the people who got this 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:37.800 antid treatment, and then weighed overall mortality risk from RH 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:39.800 disease and came up with that number two and a 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:40.760 half million babies. 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:44.280 Yeah, because I mean, when you donate blood, you do 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:47.840 save lives, but you don't necessarily save babies lives like 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:52.200 James Harrison was a baby saving machine, that's right. 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.480 They tried a synthetic version, but they're still not there yet, 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:00.720 so they they're still reliant on people, you know, donating 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.680 their blood and plasma. But the synthetic that they've been 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:05.600 working on it they call it James in a Jar, 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:06.960 which is kind of cute. 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.400 As well, right for sure. So, like you said, it 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:13.080 is kind of tough to find much about James Harrison's 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:17.280 life other than his blood donation. Laura Claus and doctor 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:19.880 Claw helped us with this one, and she found out 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.920 that he was a clerk in the Regional Railway Authority 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.800 and his wife, his beloved wife, Barbara, who died in 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:29.680 two thousand and five, was a teacher and Harrison's dedication 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:33.800 was such that when they went on vacation. Whenever they 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:36.960 went on vacation, they would putts around Australia in a camper. 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:41.800 He would find the closest blood donation clinic and go 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.040 donate blood. And the reason why he did that so 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:51.400 often was because with plasma donations, your body regenerates the 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:55.840 plasma so quickly, I think within forty eight hours that 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:59.680 in some cases, in some countries, you can donate plasma 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.600 couple of times a week rather than the I don't. 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:04.800 I can't remember. It's several weeks, if not a month 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.840 or more that you have to wait to donate whole 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:09.640 blood like the regular kind. 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:11.640 Yeah, I mean you have to wait two weeks for 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:16.240 plasma even But he wanted to donate so frequently they 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:18.160 would been the rules and like they said that, he 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.560 would come in at day like ten and eleven sometimes 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:23.280 and be like, come on, just take my plasma. I'll 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.720 be fine, And they did oftentimes. And they don't get 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:28.720 paid for it. You can get paid. It's a sort 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:30.520 of a I don't know how common it is, but 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:33.680 it's an old trick if you're really broke and can't 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.880 make rent to sell plasma in the United States, because 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.400 you can get paid for donating plasma. But he didn't 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:40.520 get paid for any of this either. 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:44.680 No, we should also say if you've never donated plasma, 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:48.160 but you've donated blood, it's it's slightly different. Donating blood 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:52.320 can take fifteen minutes. Maybe donating plasma is a whole 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.040 thing where they take your blood out just like they 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:57.040 do with whole blood, and then they run it through 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:59.760 a machine that separates the plasma from the platelets and 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:02.880 the red and white blood. Cells and returns the red 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:05.160 and white blood cells to you, and the whole process 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:07.840 takes about an hour rather than a quarter of an hour, 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:11.399 and it has all the other stuff the lead up 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:15.280 in the recovery that a whole blood donation takes. So 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:19.480 when you take that into account, James Harrison making these donations, 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:25.560 it's just even that much more removal worthy. 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:28.320 Yeah, Like, I mean one of these guys said, it's 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:30.240 like a half a day basically when you count in 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:32.960 travel and all that. Yeah, so if he donate, you know, 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:37.120 let's say that's like four hours, and if he donated 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:39.600 you know eleven, I mean how many times? Was it 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:43.440 eleven hundred plus? Yeah, Like that's just thousands and thousands 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:46.320 of hours of his life where he's trying to donate 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:48.720 even more frequently, Like, hey, it's been ten days, get 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:50.240 me in there, I'm ready for sure. 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.439 I'm sure. His coworkers were like, oh, James gets to 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.840 take a four hour lunch break every couple of weeks, 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:00.000 and his supervisors like, let me tell you about James 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:02.160 and what he's doing with this four hour lunch. 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:03.520 Exactly, you like, saving babies. 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:04.160 Right. 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:08.320 So he and his wife, Barbara had a daughter and 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:14.400 two grandchildren, and the daughter was an anti DE recipient herself, 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:18.000 and she made a big statement after he died as 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:20.720 an ANTID recipient myself, he has left the family behind 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.480 that may not have existed without his precious donations. And 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:29.720 I believe a granddaughter in law, Rebecca Mellowship, also got 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:32.280 the anti D treatment. So he even furthered his own 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:35.800 family by helping out his daughter and granddaughter in law. 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:38.800 Yeah, I guess he had four great grandchildren when he 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:43.120 died this past February in twenty twenty five. Yeah, and yeah, 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:44.960 like she said, like you can make a really good 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:47.800 case that these people would not necessarily exist without him 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:52.960 donating a very special plasma. And this was like not, 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:55.919 It's not like his family wasn't aware of this, Like 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.399 this is a big celebrated thing, not just with his 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:03.760 family but in Australia. And so his grandson Scott turned 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.800 sixteen and said, I want to join the family racket 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.560 and start donating blood too. So the first time he 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.040 gave blood, he went with his grandfather took him with him, 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:17.679 and so Scott's first time was his grandfather's one thousandth 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.120 donation too, and apparently the whole family donates blood, which 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.399 I mean imagine being the one family member who was like, no, 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:25.439 I don't feel like it. 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:27.600 Never everybody, oh man. 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.240 Is donating it. But you know there's one you know, there's. 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:35.680 One family shame. His wife passed away, Barbara, in two 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:39.040 thousand and five, so very dark times for him, and 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.119 he pressed through and did not let that disrupt his 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:44.560 donation schedule. So for the last twenty years of his 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:49.280 life as a widower, he he you know, kept giving 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:53.040 that stuff, even though he hated needles, he hated the 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:55.320 sight of blood, and he had a very low threshold 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:55.600 for pain. 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.440 Yep, there it is our O Henry style ironic twist. Yeah, 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:02.480 the man who he gave blood one and seventy three 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:05.760 times to save two point four million babies was afraid of. 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.879 Needles, that's right. And he had a favorite arm too, right. 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:13.280 Yeah, his right arm. He said at some point that 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:17.760 he feels like he even admitted it could be placebo effect, 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:22.080 but he can feel them injecting the ivy into his 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.000 left arm, but he doesn't feel it in his right arm. 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.119 So out of those eleven hundred and seventy three times, 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:30.680 only about ten were in his left arm. 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:33.399 Yeah, should we take a break. 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:34.840 We should, all. 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:37.119 Right, We'll take a break and finish up right after this. 0:20:58.080 --> 0:20:59.840 All right, So we're back to talk a little bit 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:02.520 more about the dedication of James Harrison, the most prolific 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:06.320 blood donor in plasma donor in history, even in his 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:10.520 older years, because he gave until he was eighty one. 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:14.080 In twenty eighteen, I finally said you got to stop, 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:16.480 and he didn't want to stop, but they're like, you know, 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:18.359 for your own health, you can't keep doing this. But 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:21.040 up until that point, he would ride the train an 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:23.280 hour each way to go to this donation center that 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:25.520 was the closest one, or at least that was the 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:28.439 regular one that he became accustomed to. And he was 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:30.280 really broken up. He said, it's a sad day for me, 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:32.280 the end of a long run. I keep going on 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:38.040 if they let me. And this is just I have 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:39.879 a hard time even getting through the sentence. But the 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.720 last time he gave the blood, he was surrounded by 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:45.000 moms and babies that he had saved. 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:50.600 Yeah. Incredibly, pretty amazing. Yeah, apparently even though he was 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:53.359 something of a celebrity at least that blood blood banks 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:57.399 in Australia, I think, well, beyond that too. He was 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:01.239 very unassuming in that he never walked in, you know, 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:04.280 wearing sunglasses and a scarf. 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:05.960 And then with the Golden arm is. 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:09.000 Here exactly and just wearing his jacket over his shoulders. 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:09.560 Right. 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:13.600 Yeah. He instead would just kind of chitchat other people 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:16.280 who are giving donations and kind of telling them like, hey, 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:19.399 you're doing something great. But he didn't say and I 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:22.400