A Nebraska man has unexpectedly fallen in love with his nurse after awaiting a heart transplant.

Bill Corey, 56, had been suffering from heart failure and needed a mechanical pump to survive. Corey was kept for four days at Omaha's Nebraska Medicine in 2014, when he first met Debbie Lewis, 58, who was working as patient care technician.

Lewis told TODAY the pair first met when she began helping an ailing Corey walk around the hospital to keep his muscles moving. Soon they became friends, leading him to seek her out every time he returned for another appointment or stay.

As time went on Corey and Lewis became closer, sharing their many similarities. While was divorced, and he was widowed, they both had adult children.

"She was very nice," Corey said. "I always enjoyed spending time with her. She was very much family oriented."

While their spark may have been lost on Lewis, her daughters, who all worked on the same hospital floor Corey was staying on, noticed.

"I always knew that he had an ulterior motive when he came up to us, he was looking for my mom and wanted to know where she was in the least creepy way possible," one of Lewis's daughters told News 6. "It was really sweet."

In August 2016, Corey had received his heart transplant and was about to leave the hospital for good. Despite being hesitant, Lewis took the advice of her daughters and gave Corey her phone number, slyly mentioning it "might be helpful if he ever wanted to visit."

Corey got the hint and they began dating just before Thanksgiving of that year.

"I'm totally surprised, but I couldn't be happier," Lewis told TODAY. "I had no intentions of ever getting married again, ever, and I think he felt the same way."

The happy couple are now engaged and are in the planning stages of their September wedding.

Corey, who hadn't been given a high chance of survival, said his fiancee has helped him have a new lease on life.

"I love Deb. It's that easy," Corey said. "I've been blessed in my life."

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