20 Gallons of Blood

Worried and puzzled, Manufacturer Hubert Harris, 48, checked into Dallas' Baylor Hospital a fortnight ago. His left eye was blackened; on his legs were great bruiselike splotches. To Baylor doctors, it was obvious that Harris was suffering from severe internal bleeding. They did not know why.

As the doctors tried to find the cause, veins, arteries and capillaries in Harris' intestinal tract began to leak blood. To keep alive, Harris had to have whole blood and plenty of it. The problem was Harris' comparatively rare (about one out of 100) blood type, B-RH Negative.

In desperation, the doctors appealed to the public. The response was almost overwhelming: in one week volunteers donated 311 pints. As fast as the blood could be processed, it was transfused into Hubert Harris' veins, while doctors tried to halt the bleeding with blood-clotting platelet concentrates. In all, Harris got 160 transfusions (20 gals.) of whole blood, about 20 times the amount of blood in the average man's body.

Nevertheless, despite two major operations and the aid of his fellow men, Hubert Harris could not stand the constant drain. One morning last week he died. He had taken more whole blood transfusions, the doctors claimed, than any other man in so short a time.

What had caused Harris' fatal hemorrhage? The doctors had no exact term for it, but they knew what had happened: Harris' liver had suddenly quit producing the body elements that cause blood to clot. Whether the liver's breakdown was the end result of an infection or earlier injury, the autopsy failed to show.

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