NEED TO KNOW
- Bondi Rescue star Quinn Darragh was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease as a child.
- Two years ago, his condition worsened, and he developed a serious liver disease.
- Its symptoms were brain fog and a severe irritation known as the ‘suicide itch’.
- Doctors put Quinn on the transplant list for a new liver.
- Now he’s passionate about raising awareness for organ donation.
One of Quinn Darragh’s first memories of being sick was having to spit out one of his nanna’s favourite Anzac biscuits because swallowing it would be too painful.
He was 12, and shortly afterwards he was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, which is an autoimmune condition causing irritation and pain throughout the digestive tract.
It was the start of a lifetime of hospital visits that Quinn, now 48, and a lifeguard on Bondi Rescue, had previously been tight-lipped about.
“The Crohn’s progressed, and in 2012 I needed an operation to remove my large bowel.”
“I had to have a colostomy bag, and I spent a whole summer of lifeguarding terrified, praying the bag would stay on during rescues,” Quinn tells New Idea.
“At that point, I didn’t know if I could have a reversal, and I didn’t tell any of the boys.”
“I was embarrassed and not ready to accept it could be my future.”
As it turned out, that was the least of Quinn’s worries, and it wasn’t long before something far more life-threatening was going on.
In 2024, Quinn went to his specialist in tears because he kept forgetting things.
Tests showed Quinn had PSC, a rare liver disease that some people with Crohn’s develop.
Brain fog was an early symptom, and shortly after came what’s known as the ‘suicide itch’.
“It’s this shocking itch that’s like glass under your skin and keeps you awake 24 hours.”
“I’d be writhing around all night.”
“You don’t think it will ever end, and if I didn’t have my family, I don’t know where I would have been,” Quinn says.
By then, a father of three to Xavier, now 14, Ryder, 12, and Scarlett, 11, Quinn was supported by them and his wife, Sheree.
“There were little interventions which gave me relief from the itch for a few days, but by early 2025 there were dots in my bile ducts that were cancerous, and we were out of tricks.”
“I needed to go on the transplant list for a liver,” he says.
With 108 people on that list at the time, Quinn was lucky he only spent seven weeks waiting.
“It was like winning the lottery you don’t wish on anyone, because on the other side is a family who’ve had to make the hardest decision they’ve ever had to make and you can’t underplay that,” he says.
In autumn 2025, he went in for the life-saving surgery, which took just four hours.
“Waking up, I was so grateful it had come in time, and a family made that decision.”
“It was very emotional,” he says.
Within the first week, the itching had subsided, and two months later, Quinn was feeling like himself for the first time in a year.”
Six months on, he was back lifeguarding, and in March 2026 he completed an incredible 12-hour and 40-minute swimming challenge in Bondi, raising just under $40,000, as well as awareness for organ donation.
Keen to share his story for DonateLife Week, which runs from July 26 to August 2 and calls for Aussies to check they are registered to donate, Quinn adds:
“If there’s anything I can do to be helpful to other people going through it, I’ll do it.
“I didn’t know I wasn’t a donor myself, but it takes less than 60 seconds. You can save multiple people’s lives.”
For more information: donatelife.gov.au
