Mark Read was not exactly a saint.
For decades, he was one of Australia’s most feared criminals, going in and out of prison, until he later became a popular figure thanks to books, interviews, and a film that brought his nickname, “Chopper”, to the big screen. But when hepatitis C destroyed his liver and doctors told him about a transplant, he did something no one expected of him.
He was 55 years old and had a lifetime of excesses behind him. He looked at the waiting list and thought about who else might be on it: a 10-year-old child, a young person with their whole life ahead of them. He refused to compete for that organ. In 2012, he was also diagnosed with liver cancer, and his health slowly faded until he died on October 9, 2013, at the age of 58, without ever having asked for that transplant.
