Jimmy Lanier and Suzie Armstrong share an extremely rare bond. They appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" 18 years ago to share the dire circumstances that brought them together as friends, and now, we look back on their touching story.
"Suzie has Jimmy's heart -- literally," Oprah says in the above video from 1996. "How is that possible?"
Suzie explains that six years before that, she needed a heart transplant at the same time Jimmy, who had cystic fibrosis, needed a heart and lung transplant.
Jimmy received his transplant from an 18-year-old donor who died in a motorcycle accident. "They replaced my heart and lungs as a block, because it's easier to do," he says. "Therefore, my heart was still good, so I donated it to Suzie."
After the successful surgeries, their heart-to-heart bond brought Suzie and Jimmy together as friends. When Oprah asks what Jimmy means to her, Suzie replies, "The world."
"I'm alive because of him," she says. "You can't put it in words. People ask me, 'How do you feel?' There is no words to say. I thank God every day for Jimmy."
Find more videos and full episodes from 25 years of "The Oprah Show."