Rare double transplant gives new heart and liver to Aiken teen

AUGUSTA, Ga (WJBF)- An Aiken teen with a lifelong heart condition is recovering after a rare double organ transplant.

17-year-old Collin Gibson was born with a rare congenital heart defect, enduring several surgeries during his short life.

Last year, at an annual check up, Collin learned that not only was his heart failing, his liver was too and he would need them both replaced.

“I’ve had a lot of support to get me through it, so I can’t say it’s been that bad. I mean, there’s definitely worse out there, that’s for sure,” Collin said.

Collin’s father, Chris Gibson told NewsChannel 6, when his wife Tara was 20 weeks pregnant she went in for a routine ultrasound, only to discover that something wasn’t right.

“From there, we saw the high risk doctor and they said that they could see that he didn’t have a left ventricle and that he was going to need multiple surgeries to correct it,” said Chris.

The rare condition is called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome where the left side of the heart doesn’t fully develop and can’t pump blood well. That causes the right side to work overtime to get blood to other parts of the body.

Chris said doctors didn’t think Collin would survive, which was hard to deal with.

“It was really tough on both of us. It was especially tough on her because at the same time, she lost her mother and she had to be told, you know, she was told that she was going to have a kid that probably wouldn’t live past birth. So it was like a double whammy for her.”

Before he was born, Collin’s parents and doctors were already planning for that first surgery.
Chris said most babies with the condition go in for surgery just days after they are born. Collin got more time.

“They felt that he could probably wait till two months to do his first surgery, which was the Norwood,” explained Chris. “And he went through the first surgery and it was tough. It was a long procedure. And it was kind of shaky at first.”

He told NewsChannel 6 that at one point doctors said Collin wasn’t stable, which meant the surgery would have to wait. But they were able to stabilize him and finish the procedure.

Chris said that touch and go moment was one of the scariest of his life.

“I walked back into the waiting room, and a woman just saw me pour my eyeballs out. Didn’t know her from anything. And she grabbed my hand and started praying for me. And her whole family did. And no later than she finished praying for me, the doctor stuck his head back out the door and said, ‘Mr. Gibson, we just got your son stabilized.’”

Collin went on to have three open heart surgeries by the time he was three years old. Chris said Tara took the lead on Collin’s health, becoming familiar with his heart condition and any possible complications. He added that she has been a fierce advocate for her son’s health.

Collin at Camp Braveheart,
where he has attended every
summer since he was 8.

Over the course of his young life, Collin has had multiple conditions that required long hospital stays and surgical procedures. Chris said one of those conditions could have killed him if it wasn’t treated.

“When the PLE (Protein Losing Enteropathy) hit, it was–that was tough. I want to say we had that issue in 2016 and it caused his body to swell up really bad. And it’s very life threatening. And they had him on a just a good amount of medications to try to help him with this. And, you know, and then it went into remission and it comes back.”

You would think a life filled with surgeries and complications from a congenital heart defect would be tough on a kid, but Collin said for him- it’s just his normal life.

“As normal as it could be, because when I was young, I was in and out of doctor’s offices a lot. Constant checkups, constant blood draws. Really had constant blood draws when I got diagnosed with PLE because it came back after the first time,” he said.

For the last several years, Collin has stayed relatively healthy considering his condition.

In November 2025, Collin went to the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Arthur M. Blank Hospital for a routine cath checkup. That was when doctors discovered he was in heart failure and needed a transplant. As a precaution, they checked his other organs and found that his liver was failing as well, because it wasn’t getting enough blood.

“Because the heart wasn’t really constructed to pump the blood to all parts of the body with just half of it being there, we see that the function declines slowly over time,” explained Dr. Fawwaz Shaw, Collin’s Cardiac Surgeon at Arthur M. Blank Hospital.

Collin needed a double organ transplant, his heart and his liver needed to be replaced. It was scary for the Gibson Family.

“And that was devastating. We knew one day it was coming and it was devastating to hear,” said Chris.

He went to the top of the transplant list because of how serious his condition was.

At the beginning of January, Collin’s family learned they had a donor and the surgery was happening sooner than expected.

“Oh, yeah dude. I was terrified. I definitely was. I don’t remember the day before or of the surgery. I don’t know why, my memory has wiped that clear, but I just know I was terrified,” Collin said.

The rare procedure has only been done about 50 times in the last 30 years, and is the first one to be performed at Arthur M. Blank Hospital. The 12 hour surgery required extensive resources.

Courtesy: Children’s Healthcare of
Atlanta Arthur M. Blank Hospital.

“The way we do these at Children’s, is that we to both transplants simultaneously. So the heart and the liver done at the same time with the heart still connected to the liver. And so we’re both working simultaneously with two extremely large teams,” Dr. Shaw explained.

Collin spent two weeks recovering in the hospital. By day 7 he was up and walking.

Dr. Shaw said it’s because Collin wasn’t frail when he went into surgery.

“Collin was in fairly good physical shape, meaning he was at home, he was not in the hospital. He was not, you know, on the ventilator, or the breathing machine. His kidneys were working fine. He was able to do most things that he wanted to do. And so that helped him to come into surgery in a very, very good physical condition.”

After 13 days in the hospital, Collin and his parents were discharged and moved into the Ronald McDonald House in Atlanta. Now they are back at home in Aiken, though they still travel back and forth to Atlanta for appointments to keep an eye on the organs and make sure his body doesn’t reject them.

Dr. Shaw said that as long as Collin takes his daily medication, the organs will likely last decades. The liver probably won’t ever need to be replaced, but Collin is looking at another heart transplant in 10 to 20 years.

Collin said he plans to take good care of his new organs.

“These rejection meds are very important. And if I miss a dose, it could cost me. So I definitely–I’ve never missed a dose. I don’t plan to. Regardless of the circumstance that’s for sure.”

Chris told NewsChannel 6 that while his family is grateful for the organ donation, there is a level of grief for the donor’s family. He and Collin both hope to meet the family someday so they can thank them.

As for his medical care team, Collin has a message for them.

“Thank you. I really appreciate you guys. That’s what I have to say.”

Collin is home-schooled and in the 11th grade. He said that he plans to go to college after graduation and become either a cardiac surgeon or a restaurant owner.

Photojournalist: Reggie Mckie.

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Rare double transplant gives new heart and liver to Aiken teen

Rare double transplant gives new heart and liver to Aiken teen

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