Throwing Yourself Out Of A Plane - And Into Life

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday October 25, 2008

Kate Benson.

The head of the nation's brain bank knows the good that comes from organ donation. He was at death's door when he got a new liver, writes Kate Benson.

Six months after Tony Harding underwent a liver transplant at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 1988, the 25-year-old PhD student and professional skydiver defied doctors' orders by fronting up at Picton airport, parachute in hand.

Too weak to climb aboard the plane, Harding was rolled on by mates, but posed for photos, arms and legs akimbo, during the 30-second freefall.

Days later, he walked into the transplant unit at the hospital and slapped his photos on the table.

"I'd been told not to play any contact sports, but skydiving's not a contact sport. It's perfectly safe. It's only the last two inches that create a problem."

Harding's doctors were aghast. Their patient had been fit and sporty, before quickly succumbing to Wilson's disease, a rare genetic disorder which causes copper to build up in the liver and brain.

Within weeks of mates noticing his eyes were yellow, Harding was in a hepatic coma and put on the top of the waiting list for a liver transplant.

He was the first person in Australia to undergo a transplant while in a coma, but that meant he missed the usual psychiatric evaluations to determine whether he would appreciate the gift and chart his life to ensure the liver had not been given in vain.

Harding had been the hospital's 35th liver transplant recipient but its first skydiver. For staff, who had been performing liver transplants there for less than six months, the photos were disquieting.

"They thought people had to be wrapped up in cotton wool, but I still hear doctors are telling patients about the guy who went skydiving six months after his transplant," Harding says.

"And I think in the end they were pleased that I had shown you could carry on with a normal life."

The parachute has since been packed away, but in the 20 years since the surgery Harding, now a neuropathologist with the University of Sydney, has proven himself more than worthy of the doctors' respect.

As the co-ordinator of Australia's national brain bank program, he collects about 90 brains a year from donors across Sydney alone, freezing and slicing them for research by staff at the Prince of Wales Medical Research Centre and the University of Sydney.

"It's a conversation-stopper at parties, that's for sure," he says. "People feel like they can't compete with a job like that, but it's just a job."

Harding has also represented Tasmania, where he grew up, in the Australian Transplant Games since 1990 and Australia at six World Transplant Games, competing in kayaking, petanque, squash, darts, swimming, tenpin bowling, eight-ball, athletics and badminton. "I'd never played badminton before and I won a medal for Australia," he says. "Perhaps my brother's tennis skills rubbed off on me."

He was the co-ordinator of the inaugural Australian team parade across the forecourt of the Opera House in 1997, Australia's flag bearer for the World Games in 2005 and took home 12 medals in the 11th national games in Perth this month.

He still plays grade hockey each year but as a goalkeeper. "It's not a contact sport if you're a goalkeeper," he laughs, still dodging the doctors' rules.

Harding doesn't know who his donor was and what fate befell them. He sent their family a letter four years ago telling them that he thinks daily of the gift he received.

"I wanted them to know that I've travelled the world and I've been able to meet a lot of family members that came along after my transplant.

"I was 24 hours from death when I received that liver so I have quite a few nieces and nephews I would never have known if it wasn't for that family."

So having devoted a life's work to organ donation, what will Harding donate when he dies?

Probably nothing. In a cruel twist of fate, he was one of thousands of Australians who contracted hepatitis C from blood transfusions in the years before the Red Cross began screening for the disease in 1990. He is excluded from giving blood or donating organs, but has not given up hope.

"It does make me sad because the body is a shell after you die and if you can help someone, you should. But the rules may have changed by the time I die. I tell everyone that they should never feel like they shouldn't donate because they are too old or have rotten eyes or whatever. You just never know."

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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