MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — An Australian man credited with saving 2.4 million babies through his record-breaking blood plasma donations over six decades, has died at 88, his family said Tuesday.
James Harrison, a retired state railway department clerk, died in a nursing home on the central coast of New South Wales state on Feb. 17, according to his grandson, Jarrod Mellowship.
Harrison had been surprised to be recognized by Guinness World Records in 2005 as the person who had donated the most blood plasma in the world, Mellowship said.
Despite an aversion to needles, he made 1,173 donations after he turned 18 in 1954 until he was forced to retire in 2018 at age 81.
“He did it for the right reasons. As humble as he was, he did like the attention. But he would never do it for the attention,” Mellowship said.