“擁有金手臂的男人”：澳洲男子獻血救百萬嬰兒

When he was 14, James Harrison needed surgery. And as he would come to find out, he would also need a significant amount of strangers’ blood to survive it.

詹姆斯·哈里森(James Harrison)14歲時曾接受過手術。后來他得知，自己能活下來還要靠大量來自陌生人的血液。

After he had recovered and as soon as he became an adult, Mr. Harrison felt compelled to pay it forward, he said. For the next 60 years he suppressed his strong distaste for needles — he says he has never watched one go into his arm — and gave blood every few weeks at locations across Australia.

長大后，已康復的哈里森感覺自己必須作出回報。在接下來的60年里，他壓抑著自己對針頭的強烈厭惡——他說他自己從未看著針頭扎進手臂——每隔幾周就去澳大利亞的各個地方獻血。

Along the way, medical professionals made a stunning discovery: Mr. Harrison’s blood contained a rare antibody necessary to make a pioneering medication that officials at the Australian Red Cross Blood Service said had helped save more than two million babies from a potentially fatal disease.

與此同時，醫(yī)生有了一個驚人的發(fā)現(xiàn)：哈里森的血液里含有一種制作開創(chuàng)性藥物所需的罕見抗體，澳大利亞紅十字會血液服務處稱，這種藥物已幫助挽救了超過兩百萬可能會患上致命疾病的嬰兒。

They said more than three million doses of Anti-D, as the medication containing Mr. Harrison’s blood is called, have been issued to mothers since 1967.

他們表示自1967年起，已有超過三百萬劑抗-D藥物——即含有哈里森血液的藥物——被發(fā)放給了母親們。

On Friday, Mr. Harrison took his seat at Town Hall Blood Donor Center in Sydney for what would be his last donation. Medical officials at the Red Cross decided that at 81, their valued donor should stop giving to protect his own health.

周五，哈里森坐在了悉尼市政廳獻血中心內，準備進行最后一次獻血。紅十字會的醫(yī)生決定，他們的這位寶貴獻血者應在81歲時停止獻血，以保證他自己的健康。

Video recordings of the episode show Mr. Harrison — known to some as “the man with the golden arm” — grasping a stress ball as four silver balloons danced above him. The balloons were shaped in the numerals 1 1 7 3 — representing the total number of times Mr. Harrison has given blood.

視頻記錄了被人熟知為“擁有金手臂的男人”的這次獻血，握著壓力球，四個銀色氣球在他頭頂舞動。氣球的形狀是數(shù)字1、1、7、3，代表著哈里森獻血的總次數(shù)。

“The end of an era,” Mr. Harrison, a retired railway administrator, said on Sunday from his home in New South Wales. “It was sad because I felt like I could keep going.”

“一個時代的終結，”這位退休鐵路管理人員周日在新南威爾士的家中說道。“挺悲傷的，因為我感覺我還能繼續(xù)。”

The value of his contributions is hard to overstate.

要說他所做貢獻的價值有多么大都不為過。

The Red Cross estimates that around 17 percent of Australian women who become pregnant need Anti-D injections to keep their babies healthy, and the injections can be made only from donated plasma, which, in Australia, comes from what officials describe as “a tiny pool” of around 160 donors who have the special antibody in their blood.

紅十字會估計，澳大利亞大約有17%的孕婦需要注射抗-D才能維持嬰兒健康，而注射劑只能從捐獻的血漿中制得。在澳大利亞，官員稱他們只有來自160位血液含特殊抗體的人獻出的“少量”血漿儲備。

Without the injections, babies with certain blood types that are different from their mothers’ can develop hemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn, a potentially fatal condition. Officials estimated that as of last month, Mr. Harrison’s blood had helped more than 2.4 million babies.

如果沒有注射劑，與母親血型不同的某些血型的胎兒或新生兒會患上溶血病，這是一種可能會致命的疾病。官員估計，截至上個月，哈里森的血液幫助了超過240萬嬰兒。

“I cry just thinking about it,” Robyn Barlow, the program coordinator who recruited Mr. Harrison, told The Sydney Morning Herald.

“光是想想這件事，我都會流淚，”把哈里森招進抗-D項目的項目主管羅賓·巴洛(Robyn Barlow)告訴《悉尼先驅晨報》(The Sydney Morning Herald)。

Mr. Harrison had been donating blood for more than a decade when researchers found him in the 1960s and asked him to become the first donor in what would eventually come to be known as the Anti-D program.

在1960年被研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)、并被邀請成為后來人們所熟知的“抗-D項目”首位捐獻者之前，哈里森已經(jīng)獻了十多年的血。

His blood was exactly what they were looking for. His body naturally produces the antibody that prevents the hemolytic disease. Mr. Harrison said he was still not sure exactly why, but believes it might have something to do with the blood he received as a teenager.

他的血液正是他們所要找的。他的身體會自然產(chǎn)生預防溶血病的抗體。哈里森表示他還是不確定這是為什么，但他相信這與他少年時接受別人獻的血液有關。

“The Red Cross and Australia can never thank a man like James enough,” said Jemma Falkenmire, a spokeswoman for the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. “It’s unlikely we will ever have another blood donor willing to make this commitment.”

“對詹姆斯這樣的人，紅十字會和澳大利亞是滿懷感激的，”澳大利亞紅十字會血液中心的女發(fā)言人杰瑪·?？嗣谞?Jemma Falkenmire)說。“今后很難再找到如此全心奉獻的捐獻者了。”

Mr. Harrison has been widely praised and has received the Medal of the Order of Australia for his longtime support of the Australian Red Cross Blood Service and the Anti-D program. Ms. Falkenmire said researchers were even working on what they have called a “James in a Jar project,” with the goal of synthetically creating a mixture of antibodies that matches what Mr. Harrison produces naturally.

因為對澳大利亞紅十字會血液中心和抗-D項目的長期支持，哈里森得到了廣泛贊譽，還獲得了澳大利亞勛章。福克米爾表示，研究人員甚至還在研究一個被他們稱為“罐裝詹姆斯”(James in a Jar)的項目，目的是合成一種與哈里森自然產(chǎn)生的抗體相吻合的混合抗體。

According to Ms. Falkenmire, medical professionals are able to stimulate production of the antibody in donors, but the process can lead to a flulike reaction. Complicating matters, she said, not every potential donor — even those with the right blood type — are able to create the antibody as Mr. Harrison can.

據(jù)?？嗣谞柗Q，醫(yī)學專業(yè)人士可以在獻血者的體內刺激這種抗體的產(chǎn)生，但這一過程可能會導致一種類似流感的反應。她說，令事情更加復雜的是，即便這些捐獻者血型合適，也并非每個潛在的獻血者都能像哈里森一樣產(chǎn)生抗體。

On Sunday, Mr. Harrison said he had enjoyed meeting the mothers, nurses and others who had gone out of their way over the years to find and thank him.

周日，哈里森表示，他很高興能見到這些母親、護士和這么多年來費了很大的勁來尋找并感謝他的其他人。

Even his daughter, Tracey Mellowship, was one of those to benefit from his blood.

就連他的女兒特雷西·馬洛西普(Tracey Mellowship)也是他血液的受益者之一。

“Thank you dad for giving me the chance to have two healthy children — your grandchildren,” Ms. Mellowship wrote in a comment on a Facebook post about her father.

“爸爸，感謝你給了我機會讓我擁有兩個健康的孩子——你的外孫，”在Facebook上一則關于她父親的帖子里，馬洛西普在評論中寫道。

Mr. Harrison deflected most of the praise with humor and humility.

哈里森用幽默和謙遜來回應這些贊揚。

“Blame me for the increase in population,” he said.

“人口增長都得怪我，”他說。

As for how he processes the idea that he has saved millions of babies, he said: “Saving one baby is good. Saving two million is hard to get your head around, but if they claim that’s what it is, I’m glad to have done it.”

至于如何看待拯救了數(shù)百萬嬰兒性命這個說法，他說：“拯救一個嬰兒是很好的。拯救了兩百萬個就不太好理解了，但如果他們說就是這樣，我很高興我這么做了。”