In 1990 Edward Warner was given just three weeks to live, but 7,000 days later he is still going strong.

He knows because he has counted each and every day since undergoing the heart transplant which saved his life.

Now aged 78, he is one of the longest surviving patients to have had a heart transplant at Papworth Hospital, in Cambridgeshire – the country's leading heart and lung transplant centre.

In August 1990 he was told he had less than a month to live, then the call came to say a donor had been found.

The life-saving operation meant he has been able to watch his two sons take over the family business, and enjoy the company of his three grandchildren.

He marked the 7,000-day milestone on October 20, and said a day never goes by without him thinking about the family who made the decision that saved him.

Mr Warner, from Broughton Astley, was at a clay pigeon championship in Switzerland in the autumn of 1989 when he began having problems with his breathing.

He put it down to the altitude, but following a check-up at the then Groby Road hospital in Glenfield, heart specialists spelt out the seriousness of his condition.

Mr Warner, whose family business is Warner Textile Machinery in South Wigston, had an enlarged heart. His only chance of survival was a transplant.

On August 20, 1990, he was told he had three weeks to live.

Next morning, the transplant team at Papworth called with the amazing news that a donor had been found.

Mr Warner said: "I cannot begin to explain the emotions.

"Of course I was pleased, but you immediately think of the decision another family has made to make the operation possible.

"I can remember going to the operating theatre about 6.30pm on a Tuesday evening and wondering if I would ever come out alive.

"But I did. The operation took about four hours and by the Friday I was out of bed and on an exercise bike, although I spent about a month in hospital altogether.

"It was remarkable – from day one after the operation I felt like a 16-year-old."

He still has to keep a daily diary and returns to Papworth every six months for an "MoT".

As he recovered, Mr Warner asked hospital co-ordinators to pass on his thanks to the donor family that helped him.

He said: "There is not a day goes by that I don't think about them and the decision they made for me."

Mr Warner hopes his story will help the Leicester Mercury campaign to get more people on the national organ donor register. He said: "There can be no greater gift than being an organ donor.

"I have been able to be at the weddings of my two sons and I am watching my three grandsons grow up."

There are nearly 300 people in Leicestershire waiting for transplants, including three needing heart operations.

Professor John Wallwork, a consultant surgeon at Papworth who carried out Europe's first successful heart and lung transplant there in 1984, said: "It is wonderful to see our transplant patients, such as Edward, going on to enjoy many more years. But we could help many more people.

"The tragedy is that there are people who die with good organs and we don't get access to them.

"I would urge people to discuss their wishes with their family and sign up to the organ donor register."

Papworth's heart transplant survival record stands at 27 years.