Brits are like that...

And he's humble, too.

:cheerldr:

Awesome? I think so...

You can donate one unit of whole blood every 2 months. Or 6 times a year. It would take 167 years to donate 1000 units of whole blood.

Maybe he was donating smaller quantities, or platelets (which if I recall correctly you can donate every three days). The blood banks must have set up some sort of special collection procedure for him once his special blood was identified.

Ok. I looked him up. He was doing Plasma apheresis, which is actually a much bigger deal.

They hook you up to a machine that takes your blood and separates out the components they are collecting and returns the unwated blood components to your body. It takes 1-2 hours for one donation instead of the half an hour for a whole blood donation. And you can do it more frequently.

So this guy is truly amazing. 1000 donations that are more difficult than a typical whole blood donation.

On a related tangent, there is currently a nationwide IVIG shortage, which is used to treat a variety of autoimmune diseases and is obtained by plasma donation. (In Mr. Harrison's case, they needed one particular rare antigen, whereas with generic IVIG they need a mix of everything found in a normal person.)

As for why there is a shortage, it's a combination of 1.) the huge spike in all autoimmune diseases and 2.) the increasing awareness and medical proof that IVIG treats the symptoms of all of them to some degree, despite being obscenely expensive and a hassle to administer. But the end result is that some plasma donation places are raising their reimbursement rates. Around here they pay $40 for every donation, plus a $50 bonus if you make the maximum of three donations in a week. A dedicated donor could pull in an extra $680 a month.

So $90 for three donations in a week. About two hours per would be $15 an hour and free snacks. Won't take mine though, have to make my money the old fashion way through prostitution. :blush:

Heh. I've never been tested for suitability, but I've got enough official diagnoses on the books that I'm pretty sure they wouldn't want mine either.

My BiL is in the business. Sometimes they pay folk with a diagnosis extra $.

OMG, Shay Bradley must have been an Awesome People™ when he was alive, because he was fucking awesome in death.

Make sure to watch the vid at the link.

:devil:

Awesome People - Bad Ass Edition
 

Badassery, on an Awesome People™ level.

Oorah, indeed.:devil:

SSgt Ronald Shurer, mentioned in this thread a couple pages back, died May 14.

Fuck cancer.

Fuck Cancer