Aussie FIFO worker James Lothian is fighting for life after holiday horror in Thailand
- Perth man desperately needs donation of rare blood type
- It will take at least three donors with matching blood
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An Australian FIFO worker is in a desperate fight for life in a Thai hospital.
James Lothian, from Perth, has been in the intensive care unit in Chonburi Hospital since March after suffering catastrophic injuries in a car crash.
After five months of treatment, including several emergency surgeries on his stomach and liver, he has contracted a deadly infection and needs 1.7litres of O-negative blood, which will have to come from a minimum of three donors.
In Australia, just 9 per cent of people have O-negative blood, but in Thailand it is far rarer, at just 0.3 per cent of the population.
Mr Lothian's family have issued a plea to any Australians who are travelling to Thailand or who live there and who have O-negative blood to donate it if they can.
'After the accident, they've had to do surgery on his stomach, liver, and other things,' his sister Stacey Lothian told the West Australian.
'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.'
Australian man James Lothian (pictured) is in a desperate fight for life in a Thai hospital as he urgently needs donations of his rare blood type
Mr Lothian, 41, also recently contracted sepsis, a life-threatening blood poisoning disease, which requires 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,' his sister said.
The doctors say they can't operate until they get more donations of Mr Lothian's blood type.
His brother, who is also O-negative, donated blood in June, but cannot do so again until September. None of their three other siblings have the rare blood type.
Mr Lothian's 65-year-old father, who is a match, flew to Thailand on Friday to donate, but at least two more people with O-negative blood will need to donate.
Ms Lothian, who has set up a GoFundMe for her brother, has been posting all on Thailand expat sites to try to get donors.
'If anyone is travelling there who 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,' she said.
'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.'
Mr Lothian has been on a break from work and visiting his wife and five-year-old son when he was involved in the horrific car crash in Chonburi.
James Lothian (pictured), a fly-in, fly-out mining worker from Perth, has been in the intensive care unit in Chonburi Hospital since March after suffering catastrophic injuries in a car crash
As well as being used for transfusions for people who have that blood type, O-negative is also regularly used in transfusions where a person's blood type is unknown.
Speaking to the Telegraph last year, Dr Issrang Nuchprayoon, a professor at Chulalongkorn University and adviser to the Thai Red Cross, said there is often a shortage of O-negative blood in Thailand.
'There's always a threat when people need (O-negative) blood, that we don't have it.'
Australians travelling to south-east Asia have been advised that it is vital to know their blood type in case they need to have a transfusion while there.
