SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) — Australia's richest man, Kerry Packer, said Thursday he would have refused life-saving dialysis treatment if he had not received a kidney transplant from his longtime friend and pilot.
Helicopter pilot Nick Ross said Packer, a grumpy billionaire with a history of health problems, was near death before the transplant of his only kidney in a Sydney hospital in November.
"Obviously, he saved my life," Packer, 63, who controls media and gaming group Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd., said in a rare interview Thursday.
"I couldn't live on dialysis. I wouldn't," Packer said of the dialysis that can require up to nine hours of treatment a day, several days a week.
Packer, whose personal fortune is estimated at $4.3 billion, was clinically dead for about eight minutes after he suffered a massive heart attack while playing polo in October 1990. A nearby emergency crew saved his life.
The television interview gave rare insight into a media mogul who shuns the media and a man best known for his gruffness and fondness for high-stakes gambling as well as his generosity to employees and charities.
The pair swapped jokes during the interview, with Ross describing their relationship as two rascals who enjoy racing fast cars.
Ross rejected media speculation that Packer had paid him for the transplant. "You don't give organs away for money," he said.
While doctors say the operation has been an outstanding success and should remain so for some years to come, the heavy-framed Packer appeared to have lost a lot of weight.
Packer, who lost a kidney to cancer in the late 1980s, said he required almost daily hospital treatment to guard against infection and the danger of his body rejecting Ross's kidney.
Ross, a former Royal Navy pilot, said he first became aware of Packer's kidney problem about two-and-a-half years ago when he accompanied his boss to New York for heart surgery.
He said Packer's condition worsened late last year.
"It became apparent that Kerry was actually really ill and rapidly getting worse, to the point where he was probably not going to last much longer," said Ross, who has worked for Packer since coming to Australia from Britain in the early 1980s.
Packer says thanks
Packer spoke to Australian Broadcasting Corporation's "Australian Story" television programme in order to thank Ross and to increase awareness of kidney transplant surgery.
"Imagine having a friend who is good enough to do that," Packer said of Ross, whom he calls "Captain Whirly-bits."
"For somebody to be generous enough to say 'take it out of my body, you have a go', it was the most precious gift anyone could give you," he said.
Ross said he stepped forward as a possible donor as soon as he heard of Packer's kidney problem because he thought his friend had endured many health problems.
"He's had a rough bloody track medically all his life...hasn't had a great deal of quality living in the last several years. I wanted to help him, and I did," said Ross, who admits many people see his boss as an ogre.
"The truth is he's a very kind and generous person."
Ross said he had urged Packer, who has abstained from alcohol all his life, to give up smoking. Packer in turn joked that the kidney was not used to going without alcohol. "I don't know that the kidney can handle much more milk," he said.
Packer controls about 37 percent of PBL through Consolidated Press Holdings. His son James is executive chairman of PBL, which owns Australian television network Channel Nine, the nation's largest casino and a stable of magazines.