You took Rocky as gospel. It is the gospel. I started to sing the Rocky theme. A Hollywood power player in the fight of his life... There you go. Quick little feet. ...to survive a near-fatal medical mystery. He was on his near last breath. She said to me, 'You're probably gonna die tonight, and you should text your loved ones.' This is just so surreal. I'm just really scared. His fiancee recording it all in a video dairy and faced with a terrible decision. We were like, 'What? Did he just say amputation?' Jonathan's life was in your hands. A virtual guinea pig for an 18-hour first-of-its-kind hand transplant. Luke Skywalker got a robotic arm in Star Wars. But could it work with real flesh and blood? Getting ready for the hand transplant was literally the fight of my life. Tonight we're showing you in real time. Doc, will I be able to play the piano after the surgery? The triumphant story of a man who would not give up. There you go. Feel it. Feel it. Dude, good job. Thank you for saving my husband's life. Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone. Captions by Antony Vlug. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017 Kia ora. I'm Carolyn Robinson. Welcome to 20/20. Tonight we have a remarkable story of survival and courage. But it's also about the amazing work of a surgeon at the very cutting edge of medical science. Can you imagine waking up with no hands or a stranger's hands where yours used to be. Tonight a reality TV producer who's life suddenly turned into a very real episode of Survivor. A medical mystery becoming a medical miracle. Here's reporter JuJu Chang. If clean living needed a poster child, it could easily be Jonathan Koch. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I've never done drugs. I've never had a beer, or I don't drink coffee. Not because I'm against those things; they're just not for me. Five-five. And the only thing tighter than his top spin grip... Nice backhand. ...is the bond he shares with his teenage daughter, Ariana, his date for 14 straight father-daughter dances. You get into high school, and those dances become very real, because you know you only have a couple of them left. The rest of his life is consumed by work. A modern-day Hollywood mogul. Hey. How are you? What do you love about your job? My job is an opportunity every second of the day. Does anyone know what's going on in Italy right now? Cofounder of Asylum Entertainment, a production company, he and his partner recently sold for $100 million. They've done dozens of hit TV shows you've undoubtedly seen ` from sports,... to reality TV. I'm fat, and the damned buttons gave out. And even scripted dramas like the Kennedys, starring Katie Holmes. You know you're going to win. No, I really don't. And we're not just name-dropping. All his high-flying Hollywood friends adore him. Like the creator of the show 24, Joel Surnow. We all feel the same way about Jonathan. This guy's a treasure. This guy is unique... person. And the multi-platinum singer-songwriter Jewel. He's a special person. You're lucky if he's your friends. There's a hell of a journey and a story that he just went through that is unlike anything I can ever imagine. # Not to worry, cos worry is wasteful. With all he had going for him. # My hands are small, I know. It's hard to imagine that Jewel's song Hands, a haunting ballad about overcoming adversity, could be considered his life's anthem. # I am never broken. Just two years ago, the master Hollywood storyteller had no idea he was about to play the unwitting lead in his own reality survivor show. If someone pitched you the story of your life, would you buy it? No, because I don't know the end. He may not know the end, but the beginning is vivid ` January 26th 2015. What were your first signs that something was amiss. I was getting to go on a business trip to Washington DC. He's headed to a reality TV convention when reality throws him a curve. This 6'1", 225-pound tower of health is suddenly, inexplicably ill. No, Jonathan's not a guy who typically gets sick. His long-time girlfriend Jennifer. He is always healthy. He's always working out. But waking up that morning, out of the blue, he's so weak and feeling so awful, he tells Jennifer to take him to the hospital. I felt like I had been hit by a truck. I lay down completely flat on the floor, and I said, 'I cannot do it. I literally can't move.' That's not something he would normally say, so immediately it set off alarms for me. At first, the real-life Iron Man tries riding it off. And so when you're heading to the ER, how concerned are you? I just thought I needed to go to the hospital and they need to check my oil and get me out of there. I just really didn't think too much of it. The couple wondered maybe it's something he ate. Doctors thought it could be the flu. So at that point, I kinda relaxed a little bit and thought, 'OK, I've never really had it like this, but OK.' You decided, well, it's a good idea to get on a cross-country flight. Well, I did ask. And they said, 'You seem OK to us. I don't think anything's wrong.' He rests in first class on the five-hour flight and hopes a good night's sleep at the Washington DC hotel will do the trick. The next morning, he powers on to the Realscreen Summit, where some of the biggest TV deals are made. His team has been prepping all year, but he barely lasts one meeting. I was walking through the convention floor, and I was about to fall down, and I started seeing, you know, three and four of everybody in the room. And I thought, 'This is not going well.' He stumbles out of the convention hall and into a cab, to George Washington University Hospital. There's no doubt that he looked like a sickly patient. He looked very ill. Dr Lynn Abell says Jonathan walked into the ER feverish, his heart racing, his blood pressure low. It was the end of January. The flu, viral illnesses were the common things that we're seeing in the emergency room. ER doctors begin standard care ` blood tests, urine cultures. They give him IV fluids and antibiotics. Even hooked up to all those lines, Jonathan keeps his sense of humour, sending this selfie to colleagues with the caption ` When did you first get word that things were going south? We're texting, and he's sending me photos or whatever of himself, and he's starting to look a little bloated in the face. He was saying, 'I'll be fine. I just have pneumonia. I'll be fine. It's fine.' But suddenly doctors aren't so sure. He did not progress in the way everyone thought. What they were doing was not working. His white-blood cell count starts to plummet, a sign the body's immune system is malfunctioning, and his feet freezing cold to the touch. It wasn't obvious what was causing his cold feet. Dr Michael Seneff says Jonathan's circulation was abnormal, as was something else. Though, they were pumping litre after litre of IV fluids into his body, Jonathan is pleading for something to drink. We're giving him a lot of fluids. It's not having as much effect as we want, because he's got leaky capillaries. It's going out into his tissues. Doctors are dumbfounded. Nothing is working. As day turns into night, Jonathan's condition is so grave they move him to intensive care. The concern level was very high at that point. Whatever he's got is aggressive and it's progressing at an alarming rate. He was scared out of his mind. 'So why is this happening' is exactly what he's saying to me. And I can't completely explain it to him. He was like, 'Can I die tonight?' And I was` I had to be honest. They said to me,... 'You're probably gonna die tonight. And you should text your loved ones.' How do you say goodbye through a text? For at least one person he loved, that seemed unimaginable. You decided not to text your daughter cos you just didn't want to have that be her last message from you? Nothing good could come from it. But that moment when I decided not to was really the moment that I decided that I just can't die. I can't. I can't do it. She shouldn't grow up without her daddy. When we come back, we'll explain how a model of perfect health turns into a medical mystery. Plus those emotional video diaries from Jonathan's partner. . Welcome back to 20/20 and tonight's story about the remarkable survival of Jonathan Koch. Always the model of good health, a mystery illness has seen him rushed to hospital. His doctor doesn't think he'll make it through the night, but the man who modelled himself on Rocky has made a promise that he's going to live. Here's reporter JuJu Chang. This is just so surreal. Like a horrible, horrible, horrible nightmare. Jennifer Gunkel couldn't have felt more helpless or farther away from her boyfriend, Jonathan Koch. She's home in LA while he's across the country in Washington DC, in intensive care, clinging to life with only a 10% chance of survival. The doctors were saying, 'You need to call your loved ones now.' Like Jonathan, she too was in show business, doing social media for shows like Scandal and Grey's Anatomy. Derrick. Are you ready? No. She starts recording. Hi, baby. In real-time. If you're watching... Nearly every moment of this heart-rending long-distance ordeal. I'm just really scared. Overnight, she's received an ominous text to call him. He said that things are really serious. This is more serious than I thought. And I said, 'OK, I'm getting on a plane right now.' Back at George Washington University Hospital, Jonathan's ICU doctor, Lynn Abell is baffled by her patient's mystifying illness. His heart, his lungs, his kidneys, his liver, his circulation all were failing. Agitated and now racked with pain throughout his body, doctors fear Jonathan is in full septic shock. Things get so dire, doctors resort to putting in a breathing tube, but first doctors have to sedate him, putting him into what's essentially a medically induced coma. He just begged to try and have us hold us until his fiancee arrived. He was on his near last breath. I wish I could've talked to him. I wish I would've got here sooner. I believe he's saved my life so far. I could've just given him one more kiss or one more hug or... (SOBS) As agonising hours turn into days, there are still no answers. And Jennifer, his medical proxy, has to OK every test, every risky procedure, knowing those decisions could affect his daughter, Ariana, too. This girl needs her dad. I can't mess this up. I wanted to make sure that he was there for her future. But it's the pictures that tell the story, and Jennifer is there documenting every moment, capturing the before, not even sure there'll be an after. By his second day in ICU, a terrible sign ` his limbs are turning black. Gangrene is setting in, because his vital organs are literally stealing the blood from his arms and legs to survive. His fingers are blue, and his feet are blue. Then, as things are at their most desperate, doctors propose something that to Jennifer is unthinkable. They also talked about amputating his fingers and toes. I asked them, 'Why? Please try to fix it.' Lisa, his sister, and I, we just turned and looked at each other, and we were like, 'What? Did he just say amputation?' And we were shocked. I just thought, 'I will never make that decision for him.' If anyone knew what kind of fighter Jonathan could be, it was his sister Lisa. After all, their survival story began long before this. I always felt like we were a team, the two of us, going through it. A team with her brother. Growing up in the Pennsylvania town of State College, home of Penn State. Raised by a loving mother, but a father, who Jonathan says, had no use for him. My father just had a very domineering, almost sadistic way about him. At the time, Jonathan was about 4. He says his father showed him how to tie his shoes just once, then banished him to the basement. He said, 'Go downstairs, and don't come up until they're tied.' And it took me a long time, probably, I dunno, 10 or 12 hours. I could hear my mom crying at the door. But Jonathan says there is one gift he credits his dad with giving him ` he took Jonathan to a drive-in when he was 11 ` a transformational movie called Rocky. Rocky really changed my life. It might seem cliched to some, but not if you're a downtrodden kid from the Keystone State, who'd come to LA with dreams of stardom, only to end up a Hollywood heavyweight, not unlike the Italian Stallion himself. You took Rocky as gospel. It is the gospel. What are the lessons? Well, first of all, he didn't win. Apollo Creed. Rocky didn't win, but to me, he set out to accomplish what he set out to accomplish, and to last the entire fight. And to me, that was everything. But did Jonathan have enough fight in him to beat whatever mysterious illness had breached that otherwise healthy body? Finally, after two and a half days in the ICU, Dr Seneff says it's one of the young doctors, a resident making rounds, that has an ah-ha moment. The more detective work we did, the more likely it seemed that this really was the diagnosis. A lymph node biopsy confirms it. The appropriate term, I think, is hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis. Actually, it's... Also known as HLH. A rare and aggressive immune disorder that neither of Jonathan's doctors had ever confronted. It is basically your immune system in overdrive, and there's some trigger, oftentimes viral, but it's mostly seen in paediatrics. They immediately reverse course on treatment. What they had been doing was making things worse. They start chemotherapy and massive steroids to kill off toxins. And over the short course of time, over just a few days, he started making a quick recovery of his organ systems. You opened your eyes three times today, which was amazing. I say the light in your eyes, your beautiful blue eyes. Honey, squeeze your hand again. Like the prize fighter he idolised, Jonathan survived the fight of his life, but the damage was done. Gangrene had literally starved his limbs to death. At a minimum, his left hand would need amputation. When you emerged from that coma, what's the first thing that you think? The first thing I thought was that I wanted to marry Jennifer. And yet before that, you weren't planning on getting married? No. What changed? All of a sudden, it was just about us. When we return ` they saved his life, but they can't save his limbs. All four of them damaged beyond repair. I didn't understand how this could happen when I lived my life the way that I did and all the exercise. But little did he know, there was yet another Hollywood twist in store. What does this Miracle on the Hudson... Evacuate. ...have to do with this medical miracle? We'll explain how all that fits together when 20/20 returns after this break. . Welcome back. Tonight on 20/20, we're bringing you a story of survival. It's the story of Jonathan Koch, a high-flying Hollywood producer, who was struck down by a potentially deadly mystery disease. Jonathan's doctors have saved his life, but they cannot save his hands. What happens next to the real-life Rocky is a medical miracle. And a warning ` some viewers might find pictures in JuJu Chang's story disturbing. Back home in Los Angeles, there's little relief for the recovering, beleaguered Hollywood executive. It feels like somebody's holding a Bic lighter under my fingertips all day, every day. His hands, in this video so diseased from gangrene, we've concealed them. He spent more than 85 days in two different hospitals. His four blood-starved limbs are all but dead. As bad as it looks, it feels even worse. How did you get through all that pain? I prepared my whole life to push myself past, you know, the norms, past what I think I need to do. You didn't look in the mirror for months. I chose not to look in the mirror, because I could tell by the reaction of people around me, it wasn't going great. He's stuck in a wheelchair, 40 pounds lighter, a sickly shadow of his former self. With virtually no use of his hands and feet, Jonathan's well of optimism fills with doubt. When did the term transplant enter your vocabulary? I actually can remember right where I was at GW. I was standing in the hall. The attending that was on just said, 'I think they're doing hand transplants now. 'You should google that. You should check it out.' And she does. Jennifer learns one of the world's leading hand transplant pioneers, Dr Kodi Azari is just 20 miles away from their home at UCLA. The hand is probably the most remarkable, I'd say, instruments that I've ever seen. As surgical director of UCLA's hand transplant programme. Dr Azari's passion often inspires him to wax poetic about his favourite appendage. If there's any evidence of divine intervention, it would be the human hand. This same hand can break bricks; it can also have the precision to be a concert pianist. Which is why trying to replace it has been so imperfect. From a hook like this one, to even a state-of-the-art prosthetic, Dr Azari says there was room for improvements, but it would take just the right patient. When I first saw Jonathan, he was actually incredibly frail. He hadn't showered for months, because he had open wounds. But Dr Azari had a plan ` a new innovative procedure, a type he had never attempted before, where the amputation of the hand is placed closer to the wrist than the elbow. The arm is then prepped specifically to receive a new hand. Each and every nerve, tendon, vein and artery is extended and bound together. The arm is then sutured closed until it's later reopened and attached to a donor hand. The benefits ` more functionality and range of motion, a much better quality of life for Jonathan. He was dependant on his wife for every single aspect of his daily existence. You know, personal hygiene and those situations is not personal any more. Azari wonders, 'Could Jonathan be the one for his dream procedure?' He had plenty of doubts. It takes a lot of effort to rehabilitate the hand, and you want somebody to put in that effort, otherwise it would've been a waste. Jonathan, brimming with enthusiasm, had no doubt. And I was just like, 'Oh my God, this guy. This is our guy. Let's do this. 'Do you have hands here that we choose from or can we just get one right now before we leave? 'Or how is this gonna work?' And he was like, 'No, chill. Slow your roll.' Azari laid out a blunt series of challenges before he'd even agree to be his surgeon. For starters, he'd have to regain his strength and rebuild that once brawny body. Trainer Scott Zeller played coach Mickey... Hold it! ...to Jonathan's inner Rocky. I learned to trust Scott very quickly, and he understood not to baby me. We'd do a set of something, and then he'd fall asleep at the table. I had 270mg of morphine coursing through my body every day. I kinda had to shake him awake to get him back going again, and then we'd do another set of something, and then he'd fall asleep. Getting ready for the hand transplant was literally the fight of my life. His mind perhaps more battle ready than his body, but within only two months of training, Dr Azari thinks Jonathan is ready for the next challenge. It all sounds strange to say it, but I wanted them to cut my original hand off. It was horrible. It was hurting me. It was dead. And it's very hard to live for as long as I did with dead limbs. In the summer of 2015, the process begins. Dr Azari amputates Jonathan's totally useless left hand and just the fingers on his partially functioning right. But while he's emotionally divorcing himself from parts of his own body, Jonathan makes good on the promise he'd made waking up from his coma. He and Jennifer are married in their backyard in a ceremony so simple there isn't even cake. It was so simple and perfect. It was 38 seconds, in the backyard, with four people, and we laid down and got something to eat, like we always do. Yeah, we had honey nut Cheerio's. But next came perhaps the biggest and most costly of Dr Azari's challenges. Before Jonathan could get a new hand, the cruellest kind of exchange. Azari tells Jonathan there's something that can't be fixed. He would have to lose his leg. We said, 'Jonathan, I can't do your transplant until you've had your amputations of your legs 'and you're up and moving around with your prosthetics.' Why? So he could be healthy and strong and be steady on his feet, so as to not stumble and injure his new hand. So the very next day after getting married, back to the hospital for the amputation of his right leg. We had our honeymoon in the hospital. Yeah. It was lovely. It was. There was reason to be hopeful. So many high-profile success stories. There's Oscar Pistorius breaking records on those blades. Paralympian Amy Purdy, a double amputee nearly taking home the Mirror Ball on Dancing with the Stars. You'd think an optimist like Jonathan would be prepared, but it seems nothing prepares you for the moment when you're staring down at an expanse of bed sheet where your leg used to be. It took me by surprise, actually, that I was so emotional about having my leg amputated. When we left the hospital and I was getting into Jennifer's car and I realised that I didn't have a right leg below, I was shocked. So upset that Jennifer was forced to pull off the road. And I just burst into tears, which was the first time during this entire thing that that had happened, and, you know, after that, we came home and we got to work. (GROANS) All the way to the toe. Boom. Oh my God. Undeterred, with even fewer limbs, but now fitted with a prosthetic leg, the moment of truth. On the first day that he got his prosthetic, he got up and walked, and I've never, ever, ever seen that before. What was that moment like when he learned to walk? I was overwhelmed with joy. He hadn't walked in 11 months. Yeah, we trained really hard, but I was so happy. All the while, Jennifer's video camera trained on some unsteady strides and surprisingly few stumbles. That old swagger back intact. I was incredibly impressed with the speed of his rehab. I didn't think there could be someone that was this eternal optimist, that would work so hard, doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, eats well. I didn't think that person existed. And yet, here's Jonathan. And with that, Dr Azari finally gives the green light to place Jonathan on the donor recipient list for a hand. And when we come back, the call comes. I was like, 'This isn't happening. This isn't happening,' and then Jonathan's gonna get another man's hand. The hand is on its way, packed on ice, in a cooler like this one. But it can't survive long without blood. Well, we all know about the notorious LA traffic. And an unforeseen visitor causes an unexpected delay. And we'll have that critical race against time when we return right after this break. . Welcome back. Tonight on 20/20, we're bringing you the story of a very successful man who modelled himself on the Rocky movies, but who now finds himself in the fight of his life. Jonathan Koch has survived a life-threatening illness but has lost his limbs. He's learned to walk again with prosthetics, and he's about to undergo a state-of-the-art experimental hand replacement surgery. Now, while a donor has been found, getting that new hand through the LA traffic at peak hour, well, it's become a race against time. Here's reporter JuJu Chang. Look carefully. You're watching Jonathan Koch bench-press using the stump of his left wrist, remarkable pushing past the familiar, ever-present pain. Come on. (GROANS) This unwavering drive... Good job. ...is about to pay off with a new hand. If I wasn't ready, then what Dr Azari did and all of his genius, would have gone, potentially, you know, to waste, and so that wasn't OK. But Dr Kodi Azari had to be ready too. He trained 18 years for this moment. And not unlike Jonathan, he too had a silver screen hero. Birds. Whoa. Sully ` the movie about the hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger's miraculous plane landing on the Hudson. Azari says he watched it repeatedly, taken by the striking similarities between their two professions. We're expected to do the operations perfectly every single time, yet the human body throws curveballs our way, and when that happens, you've gotta have the composure to do what's right, to do what's best, and you have to make judgments at very critical times. And lives can often be` And lives. The movie really resonated with me. In many ways, Sully's like a hero to you. I think he's a hero to many people. And like pilots in a simulator, Azari and his team gathered multiple times to practice Jonathan's operation in a surgical anatomy lab. The search for a donor is not easy. The hand is different. It's an external organ, so you need to match for size, you need to match for colour, you need to match for hair pattern. Imagine my hairy hands on you, JuJu. I don't think you would accept this as yours. That would be a little off. After a seven-month wait, last October Jonathan and Jennifer get the call, the one they hope will change their lives. I still don't believe it. I was like, 'This isn't happening. This isn't happening.' And then, finally, you know, we get in the car, and we go. And so, you're driving to the hospital. What's going through your mind? Well, first of all, Obama was in town. So that wasn't great. 9.30am, the surgical team is at UCLA medical centre waiting on Jonathan and Jennifer. But they didn't bank on this. President Obama will be fundraising in LA once again. And that means traffic delays as you head to work. And so, it's LA traffic? Yeah. You're stuck in gridlock? Yes. They're relying on a GPS, but on a day like this, it's more like OMG. We decided to follow Waze, but of course, everybody in LA follows Waze, so we were on these back roads with all these stop signs with literally as much traffic as there was on the freeway, so we were 45 minutes late to my own hand transplant. Meanwhile, the donor is on life support at another Southern California hospital. Azari and his procurement team are there to meet the dying man's family. And I actually got to meet the donor's brother, and I got to meet the donor's pastor. And to me, that was an incredibly emotional time, because I can truly sense their loss. Jonathan got an organ from somebody that was truly an incredible person. 2.58pm, Azari texts Jennifer... But timing is now critical. Traffic delays from the president's motorcade could be catastrophic. Dr Azari has a helicopter on standby. The organ, or the hand for this instance, is not getting blood supply. So over time, it's deteriorating. So there's a ticking clock. A ticking clock on what will already be a marathon, almost 18-hour surgery, but today in the City of Angels, an angel just might be watching over them. And do you get stuck in traffic? How do you get back? There was no traffic ` imagine that ` coming back to UCLA. There was very little traffic. How are you feeling about your hand transplant surgery? Very peaceful and hopeful that everything goes well. Jonathan had no concerns going into the surgery, but I did. I mean, this is an 18-hour surgery. This is a big deal. I actually told Dr Azari, I said, 'You take care of my husband. You better take care of him.' Don't lose him. Yeah. You bring my husband back to me. 3.57pm, Azari joins his team of 13 surgeons, four anaesthesiologists and eight nurses from competing Southern California hospitals. Now in the OR for one of the first-of-its-kind hand transplants. Before now, it was the stuff of science fiction. Luke Skywalker got one in Star Wars. Ow. But this procedure, if it works, will be groundbreaking. A complex surgery that would allow Jonathan with recover with greater coordination and more sensation than in previous hand transplants. You volunteered to be a guinea pig, essentially? I did volunteer to be a guinea pig, but it's really my job to make sure that I have the best chance to succeed so that other people can have the same opportunity moving forward. But the possibilities for complications are inevitable. There's always the fear that maybe rejection will set in or some other complication might set in. That's right. Initial fears are that the vessels are gonna clot and blood is not going to move through the hand. 4.15pm, two surgical teams work simultaneously side-by-side. Every tendon, artery, nerve is tagged and labelled, kind of like stereo wires, waiting to be reconnected. There's no margin for error. Nerves are like coaxial cables. Except there's no red to red, green to green, yellow to yellow connection. You have to figure out how they fit within each other so that the parts of the nerve that are for sensation match up and the parts of the nerve that are for motor function match up. And so one wrong move, and it affect the way that his hand moves? The way his hand moves, the way his hand feels. 11.01pm, the new hand is now attached. Tourniquets and clamps removed. Did it work? The surgical team holds its breath. And what was that moment like when you saw the pulse return to his wrist? When you see this dead hand ` it's cold, it's white and it's not moving. And once you connect the vessels, including arteries and the nerves, then you see it start to swell up with blood, it's like a new life. It's magical. 9.07am, the next morning, the operation is over. Jonathan wakes with one pressing question for Dr Azari. I asked Dr Azari, 'Did you do it?' And he said, 'Yes,' and then I started to sing the Rocky theme. (ROCKY THEME) (CHUCKLES) Coming up ` would Jonathan's new hand function as Dr Azari hoped? We're gonna try to move your thumb tip. Would he be able to feel the touch of his wife's hand in his again? The day after Jonathan's surgery is Jennifer's birthday. There was only one gift she wanted. (CHUCKLES) That's amazing. Just incredible. Will Jennifer get that special gift? Stay with us to find out. . Welcome back to 20/20. Tonight we're bringing you the inside story of Jonathan Koch, a man who was the recipient of a high-tech experimental hand-replacement surgery. Now, the surgery's been completed. He has a new left hand, but the next few days are crucial to his recovery. There are fears of rejection and of infection, but for this real-life Rocky, there's one important date to get through first. Here's reporter JuJu Chang. 21 arduous months after Jonathan Koch first felt sick, a moment that would've been inconceivable at the start. He wakes from surgery with the newly transplanted left hand. I was told that an hour after surgery, you were moving fingers. It was Jennifer's birthday. When I got out of surgery, and she said, 'I just want one thing. 'I just want you to move one of your fingers` I think, to move your thumb.' I can move it if I... (CHUCKLES) That's amazing. And I didn't think there was any chance I could, but I thought about it, and it moved. What a birthday present. Yes, it was the best birthday present. (BOTH LAUGH) Then all of a sudden this guy comes on. And that's where it began. Every hour, something would come back. Doc, will I be able to play piano after the surgery? It was incredible. A new hand, yes, but what kind of new life lies ahead? Remember, he also lost fingers on his right hand and a leg to that insidious disease. It's in my heart that if you, you know, set your mind to something and you're willing to get through the pain, anything is possible. Boom. That's awesome. About one week in, he's gripping a tennis ball and throwing it. What?! From the opening serve, his doctor says, it was advantage Koch. Unbelievable. So, better than expected? Better than expected. Next thing you know he's got this little video that he shows me where he picks up a glass of water and he takes a drink, and he goes, 'Ah.' Jonathan has met or in the vast majority of cases exceeded all of my expectations. The classic one was I told him, 'Jonathan, it's gonna take you, maybe, 'a year and a half to two years before you can tie your shoelaces.' At two months, he sends me a video of him tying his shoelaces. That moment loaded with symbolism for the man who told us he first learned to tie his shoes in that basement under the duress of his dad. You don't have a lot of patience for this? No, that's` I` Because you said, you know, 'My doctors are telling me I'm a year ahead of schedule, 'but I don't feel like I'm there.' I don't. Cos I'm just doing what's in front of me. For months now, he's put more in front of himself than many would. Here you have full extension. Remember you didn't at the beginning. That was the most difficult one. At UCLA, an exacting rehab regiment to build up the hand itself. And at the gym. Dude, good job! There's something constantly new on the horizon that we're trying to accomplish. An exhausting workout schedule to restore his whole body. 10. One, come one. One` 30. One, two, three... Seeing him do new things after his hand transplant, quite a few of them brought tears to my eyes. Ready? Go. But maybe the greatest reward of them all ` doing anything with his daughter Ariana. I'll get you next time. How cool is it to be able to work out with Ariana again? Oh, I love it. You know, doing those things now with her are just extraordinary. Like in February, a milestone that seemed implausible ` they attend Ariana's last high school father-daughter dance. You made it to a father-daughter dance again? I did. Father-daughter dances are amazing, and Ariana was incredible. She took care of me the whole night. OK, let's do this. But I got to share a pretty special thrill with him too. Perfect. A rally on his beloved tennis courts. Yes! How does it feel? It feels good. I just can't really feel my grip that well yet. As if playing tennis alone isn't amazing enough, the natural righty had to learn to do it left-handed. Yes! Yeah, I'm not great, but I am working on it, and I'm having a blast relearning tennis. Good job. You're amazing. It's not without issues. His heart and lungs are not at the levels they once were, and like any transplant recipient, there is a lifelong looming possibility of rejection. Curiously, Jonathan says he's lost a lot of his taste for food, and he overheats a lot, so he carries a fan, even during our interview. I'm just cool down one second. Yeah, sure. But wherever Jonathan goes, he is a living, breathing inspiration. I feel very much that I'm... you know, the test pilot for this. You know, that my hand is my hand, but it's really all of ours. And speaking of pilots, remember that one who'd inspired the whole world with his heroism? Dr Azari, I have a little surprise for you. Well, he asked. Am I about to be pranked? And he agreed... Come on in. ...to pay Dr Azari a surprise visit. Oh! Cool! Dr Azari. Sir, how are you? Very nice to know you. Captain Sully. Evacuate. The high-flying hero who makes a down-to-Earth cameo in our little Hollywood movie. I can't tell you how many times I've cried watching the movie. That was an incredible day for America. I think at a time when we all needed it, it gave us all hope. Oh my goodness. Jonathan, how are you? Good. How are you? Jennifer, it's a pleasure to meet you. Pleasure to meet you. It's pretty remarkable, isn't it? It is amazing. It's been an incredible experience. As something happens almost every day, that changes it. It's amazing how complex the human body is. You shake? (ALL CHUCKLE) That's lovely. It is. # And my hands are small, I know. # But they're not yours. They are my own. When Jewel wrote her top-10 hit Hands, she didn't even know Jonathan Koch. # And I am never broken. But now the song is almost a soundtrack for his life. Nobody gets through life without pain, not one of us. We're all gonna deal with heartbreak, death, trauma. So I really wrote that song about not being a victim, about taking your happiness in your own hands. Sometimes you use one finger to hit both strings. And with that new left hand, his first stab at playing guitar ` part music lesson, part life lesson. Wow, this feels really good. Wow. I really like it. You just learned a chord, dude. Thank you, everyone. Jonathan Koch, the man who made a fortune telling other peoples' stories now telling his own as inspiration. None of this is ever gonna happen to you. You're never gonna face it, but things are going to, and good things and bad things, and I would just like you to be ready, and some day when you're feeling challenged that you'll look back at this and you'll say to yourself, 'You know what, I can push through this. I can do more than I thought I could.' It has already helped, you know, a lot of people, and that means everything to me. But on this day, he takes us back to where it all began. The last time Jonathan and Jennifer went through this door, they were heading out to an uncertain future. Now, they're heading back in. Oh my gosh, wow. (ALL CHEER) Hey, everybody. Cherishing the chance to say thank you to those same doctors and nurses at George Washington University Hospital. Thank you. They may never know what triggered his medical mystery,... Thank you. Welcome back. ...but seem just as thrilled as he is that they solved it. Thank you for saving my husband's life. Thank you so much just for everything. And if you're wondering about the donor of Jonathan's hand, well, he also saved two other lives with his lungs and his liver, and that man's family say they are very much looking forward to meeting Jonathan soon. That's our show for tonight. Thank you for joining us. Kia ora. Nga mihi. Captions by Antony Vlug.