He told the story of successfully delivering a baby one day but through some serious complications the mother was hemorrhaging very badly and needed some blood. There were no good refrigeration facilities so blood was not stored for emergencies like this. There was no relative of the same blood type available. The normal practice was that all the nurses in the hospital were registered by blood type and could be available to donate. However, that day most of the nurses were away on a training. As it turned out Dr. Harrie was the same blood type as the woman patient so he instructed the nurse to draw blood. He lay down on a bed opposite and they took a half a unit of blood and it went straight into the woman hemorrhaging. It did not have the desired effect so he told them to take another half a unit. This time the woman responded positively and the hemorrhaging stopped.
A few days later she was able to leave for her home village but Harrie advised that she come back in a few weeks for a check up to see that all was well. Well, sure enough, four weeks later she came back with her whole family, some 50 people in all, including the chief who came to present Harrie with a goat as a symbol of their gratitude. But even more than that, he and his wife Lucie were made honorary members of the tribe, complete with all its privileges because, they said, his blood now flowed in the blood of the whole tribe and its people.