Donate Life: Corowa's Chris Robinson shares how a heart transplant gave him life

You wouldn't know by looking at the fit 58-year-old construction worker, but Mr Robinson wasn't always certain he would be around to watch Lochlan, now 14, grow up.

Over 10 years, he had multiple viruses attack his heart causing immense damage. But at first no one knew viruses were responsible for the Corowa man's chest pain.

"It's not very severe [pain]," he said. "The second one I cut wood through, I think that was also the one I drove myself to the hospital and I got a kick up the bum for that, for 30 kilometres out from a farm."

In more ways than one, it's a bit of a miracle Mr Robinson is still around.

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"Some people just have one and they're buggered after one but I had five or six hits," he said of the viruses that attacked and severely damaged his heart.

"In the end, the heart gets knocked around it gets enlarged."

Three years ago, Mr Robinson was given a second chance and a second heart through organ donation.

"What can you say, it's life, it's pure life," he said.

"I made a nurse down at the Alfred cry one day because I said to her 'the donor just gave my 10-year-old son his father back'."

Mr Robinson believes donor laws need to be changed so recipients and donor families can meet if both parties are interested in doing so.

He wants them to know how grateful he is for his second chance at life.

Mr Robinson said he's seen international examples online where recipients have met with donor families and allowed them to listen to their loved one's heart beat inside the recipient.

He'd like the give his donor family that chance if they wanted it.

"For me to meet up with them, it's for them, I want to do it for them and to say thank you and find out a bit about the person," he said.

Mr Robinson said it was important people signed up to be organ donors and told their families their wishes.

But ideally, he wants the organ donation system overhauled, so everyone is a donor unless they opt out.