Ardmore Man's Life Saved by Organ Donation

ARDMORE, Okla. -- An Ardmore optometrist has a new liver and a new lease on life.

He hopes now to encourage others to become organ donors.

David Hobbs is back. He's back home, back at work and back to health.

"I was formerly 185 pounds, lost down to 105, back up 170 this morning," Hobbs said.

Hobbs needed a liver transplant so desperately he put up a billboard in hopes of finding a donor.

"I began to realize the odds of my surviving and actually receiving a liver were slim and none," Hobbs said.

Finally, when hope seemed lost, a donor came through, and Hobbs awoke in Oklahoma City with a new liver.

"I am as thankful as any human being can be, to a family and to an individual that I know nothing about," Hobbs said.

These days Hobbs is a man reborn. His family has noticed.

"I think probably the most obvious thing is the energy," Hobbs' wife, Susan Hobbs said. "He is able to do an awful lot of things that he couldn't do before the transplant."

His brush with death has given Hobbs a new outlook--and a new determination to help other organ seekers.

"I've been given more days," Hobbs said. "My job now is to translate those days into being thankful and grateful, and helpful to people who are still in the process."

Doctors believe Hobbs' new liver could last 30 to 40 years.

But since no one knows the span of their life, Hobbs tries to treat each day like its Thanksgiving.

Learn more about organ donation