Lima man gets a 'new lease on life'

"I realized there was something going wrong," heart transplant recipient, Gerry Marcus, said.

For someone who has never had serious heart complications, it can be hard to imagine what that even means. But for Gerry Marcus - it's a feeling he knows all too well.

"I couldn't climb a set of steps, and yeah, I would be out of breath," Gerry said.

In 2014, he was diagnosed with a severe case of cardiomyopathy. 

"At that point, I didn't even know exactly what it was, but I knew I was in trouble," Gerry said.

He was put on the transplant list received an LVAD, which is a device that helped his heart to pump for the next 15 months. Fifteen months he and his wife of 41 years, spent hoping and praying.

"Oh yeah, you're on edge all the time. You're constantly praying come on let something happen," his wife Kathy Marcus said.

Never knowing when he would get that call. 

"We were out actually in the car when the call came, and I was like 'you gotta be kidding'," Gerry said.

It was March 24, 2016. 

"The heart was waiting for me essentially," Gerry said.

He got into the hospital room in Columbus by 5 o'clock that night and by 5 o'clock the next morning he had a new heart.

"I said you go to Columbus, I said in 12 hours you can have a new heart," Kathy said.

 Now their lives are slowing getting back to normal but they know that there are many others out there still waiting for that call. 

"You don't think there's that many people that need these organs, but they are there and they need it," Kathy said.

According to Donate Life Ohio, over 118,000 people in the country currently need an organ transplant. Twenty-two people die each day waiting.

"One person can save eight live, you know and give hope to some of those people on the transplant list. You could be a hero, anybody could be a hero truly," Jessica Peterson with Lifeline Ohio said.

And Gerry is living proof of what a hero was able to do for him.

"I got a new lease on a life and I'm grateful all the way," Gerry said.