Red Bank Man Receives Heart Transplant After 2 1/2 Year Wait

Two sudden heart attacks and quadruple bypass surgery had left his own heart worn out.

"They had made the heart work with medicine and finally it said, 'i'm done,'" Gillilan explained.

News 12 followed Melvin's journey back in 2007 after doctors at Vanderbilt Medical Center placed him on the National heart transplant list.

The new story begins February 3rd 2008 - Superbowl Sunday.

Melvin's favorite team, the New York Giants were set to play.

But the game would have to wait.

Because finally a new heart had arrived.

"He [the doctor] went and got the heart and during halftime they came and got me," Gillilan said.

The Giants won the Superbowl that day and Melvin won a second chance at life.

He knows only that the donor was a 38 year old man.

"I feel like it was a purpose - a purpose for everything," Gillian said about having a second chance at life.

More than a hundred thousand people are on the National Transplant Waiting List.

The need for life-saving organs is so great it's estimated that 18 people die every day waiting.

"Chances are that sometime in our life we will have a connection to either donation or transplant because it is becoming so common," Dawn Benjamin with Tennessee Donor Services noted.

The most effective and efficient way to become a donor is through the DMV.

Currently only 30% of all of Tennessee's licensed drivers have documented their decision on the registry to be donors.

The goal is to have 50 percent of Tennessee drivers signed up by 2011.

"A lot of people don't want to think about their own death. That was my case. When I went to renew my license I automatically said no. It's not because I didn't believe in it. I knew that donation saved lives. I think it was I just didn't want to think about my own death," Benjamin explained.

But Melvin knows one man's decision to think about the worst, is the reason he's back to being his best.

"There's a lot of things I can do now that I couldn't do. I couldn't walk across the yard without getting out of breath," Gillilan said.

To learn more about donor services click here.