A Perth man clinging to life in a Thailand hospital following a major car accident is in urgent need of blood after contracting a deadly infection.
His family, now in a race against time, are making desperate pleas for ex-pats and travellers to donate a rare type of blood.
James Lothian — a fly-in, fly-out mining construction worker — has been in the intensive care unit in Thailand’s Chonburi Hospital for the past five months.
The 41-year-old father was on a break from work and visiting his wife and five-year-old son when he was involved in a horrific car accident in Chonburi in March.
He has undergone multiple emergency surgeries since the incident, including on his stomach and liver, in a bid to treat his catastrophic injuries.
After a vital surgery — which involved operating on his large intestine — Mr Lothian took a turn for the worse and now urgently needs three pints of blood to save his life.
But the father-of-one has one of the rarer blood types — O-negative.
Less than 10 per cent of the population have an O-negative blood type and it is routinely used in blood transfusions where blood type is unknown, meaning it is often in short supply and high demand.
Mr Lothian’s sister, Stacey Lothian, has made a desperate plea for travellers or ex-pats whose blood type is O-negative to donate.
“After the accident, they’ve had to do surgery on his stomach, liver, and other things,” she said.
“They’ve cut out sections of his large intestine and reconnected it back up.
“That surgery wasn’t successful and his tissue died and he had to have another surgery but that also failed.”
Ms Lothian said her brother had also recently contracted sepsis — a life-threatening blood poisoning disease — requiring an emergency blood transfusion.
“He’s got an infection in the large intestine as well and now they can’t operate, they need to flush the infected blood out of his body and replace it with clean blood,” she said.
“He’s got no nutrients … and they’re unwilling to operate until he’s got new blood.”
Mr Lothian requires three pints of blood, equivalent to about 1.7L and a minimum of three donors.
One of five siblings, his brother donated in June but cannot provide the life-saving elixir again until September, and his other siblings are not a match for his rare blood type.
Mr Lothian’s 65-year-old father made a mercy dash to Chonburi on Friday to donate, but they require at least two more people with O-negative blood to donate.
“I’ve been posting all over Thailand ex-pat pages, I’ve been posting stuff on military pages trying to get everyone to share,” Ms Lothian said.
“If anyone is travelling there that is O-negative, please donate.
“It’s made me cry how many people have come forward to help but it’s such a rare blood type.
“It’s a bit scary how many Aussies are going over there for holidays — the fact there’s no O-negative blood in Thailand is scary.
“Imagine if Aussies went over there, had an accident, and had to sit there and wait for blood.”