Albury's Arthur Croft makes 460th donation to Lifeblood Wagga

The Albury resident travelled to Lifeblood Wagga on Friday where he made his 460th donation during National Blood Donor Week.

Mr Croft is one of the very few people who have anti-D, a life-saving plasma that is used for anti-D immunoglobulin injections.

The injections are given to women with negative blood types who are pregnant with babies with positive blood types which can occur when the father of the baby has a positive blood type.

When this happens, there is a risk the mother's immune system will create antibodies that can attack the red blood cells of the next positive blood type baby.

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Anti-D immunoglobulin injections can help women from developing those antibodies and prevent the fetus and newborn from suffering from Haemolytic Disease, which can be fatal or cause deformations.

"I have one of the highest anti-D counts in the state, it's me and another guy, they can't work out why, but they're always looking for more people to go on the program," Mr Croft said.

"My donation of plasma every fortnight gets broken up into about 1600 injections and a mother will need two injections, so it saves about 800 babies a fortnight."

Mr Croft made his first donation in the mid-80s when he was in his early 20s and working as a police officer for the NSW Police Force based in Sydney.

"I was in the police, they're a great bunch of guys, and the guys I was working with, it was a regular thing for them and they invited me to come in and I became a regular," he said.

After about 50 donations Mr Croft was asked to join the NSW anti-D Program, which is why he travels to places like Wagga to donate.

"I'm on the NSW program, there's a blood bank in Albury but it gets processed in Victoria," he said.

Donating fast became something Mr Croft loved to do, knowing how many families he was helping through such a simple process.

"Once you start doing it and you realise you're saving people it's a great feeling," he said.

"Every time I go in and donate blood I'm saving three people. I feel like a god knowing I am saving people, there's nothing better."

Each time Mr Croft goes into a Lifeblood centre he is seated and hooked up to a machine which draws out his blood, separating the anti-D from the blood before it puts the red blood cells back into his body.

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