URGENT BLOOD FLIGHT

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31054, 9 May 1966, Page 1

URGENT BLOOD FLIGHT

(New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, May 8. A pint of rare blood given by an Otematata woman, Mrs Noeline Gibbs, has been flown to Australia where a Sydney man is desperately ill.

The rush operation to send a pint of the rare blood cdE/cdE (R“R”) to Australia began after Dr. J. B. Howie, associate professor of pathology at the Otago Medical School, read a newspaper account of the need of the Sydney patient for the rare blood.

After confirming a person with the rare blood lived in Otago he telephoned the New South Wales Blood Transfusion Service to see if they wanted a pint of the blood.

Four pints were already being flown from London but any additional blood was also wanted.

A unit of the Otago mobile , transfusion service raced . from Dunedin to Otematata ; on Saturday night and a pint of the blood was given by Mrs Gibbs. Two samples for testing in Sydney were also taken. The blood was taken to Christchurch by road and placed on a regular airline flight to Melbourne at 9 a.m. From Melbourne ft was flown to Sydney. The tabulated container in

which the blood was flown to Melbourne was one owned by the Australian Red Cross and had been used to bring blood from Australia to Dunedin for a woman who was seriously ill here. Mrs Gibbs had never given blood before, although her husband is a donor. Although it was her first transfusion, Mrs Gibbs said afterwards that she “felt fine.” *T am only too pleased to help out,” she said. “I may need help myself, some day.” The transfusion took place inside the Gibbs’s home at Otematata. The chief technologist of ths blood bank laboratory, Mr J. Case, said tonight Mrs Gibbs’s blood was grouped last year as the rare type. ONE KNOWN One person in every 10,000 would have the unusual blood type, but Mrs Gibbs was the only person in New Zealand known to have it There are also a few known donors in England and Canada. Mr Case said there would ba people in New Zea-

land with the same blood type but samples were not usually tested for the R “R” factor. The Dunedin blood bank had deliberately gone out of its way to test for unusual blood types so a comprehensive range of donors could be built up, Mr Case said. BLOOD ARRIVES

The blood is for Kevin Abberton, aged 39, of Sydney. Abberton was admitted to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on Wednesday, according to a cable message from Sydney. Another four pints of the blood will arrive in Sydney tomorrow from Britain, where four donors were found. As soon as the aircraft reached the terminal at Sydney today, an air traffic supervisor ran up the steps to receive the package from the flight’s hostess. He handed the package to the driver of an ambulance from the Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service who was waiting at the edge of the tarmac.

The blood was cross-typed then rushed to the hospital. The four pints of Britishdonated blood are scheduled to arrive in Sydney at 9.30 a.m. (New Zealand time) tomorrow, according to a London message. It had been scheduled to leave on an earlier flight but that flight was delayed six hours at Fiji on its way to London.

The transfer to flight 760 means the blood will arrive in

Sydney three hours earlier than it would have, had the earlier flight left on schedule. Permission for the transfer was given by the medical director of the South London Blood Transfusion Service (Dr. R. A. Zeitlan), who yesterday got in touch with four donors with the right group. The blood, in the care of a steward, is being carried in special cool Storage. The Sydney blood bank had asked the Lister Institute's branch in Hertfordshire, England, for supplies but it was unable to help. Institute officials passed the message on to Dr. Zeilan. He telephoned a colleague in Bristol whom he knew had a donor with the rare group and called in three similar donors in his own area. “I have really only organised an urgent delivery like this once before and that was to New Zealand,” Dr. Zeitlan said. The Canadian donor is Mrs Norman Pederson, who lives 70 nfiles from Regina. A medical team from Regina flew to Mrs Pederson's home after the Canadian Red Cross began a search for two of the five Canadians listed as having the rare blood. The remaining three had given blood recently and were not available for another donation. The search is continuing for the remaining donor. Mrs Pederson’s blood dona- > tion was being .flown 1000 miles from Regina to Vancouver where it was to picked up for a flight to Australia. 4