Georgia teacher who lost leg in drunk driving crash now giving back through blood donations

Hannah Nabors has defied the odds a few times in her life. 

In February 2025, the Armuchee Elementary School teacher lost her leg in car crash with a drunk driver. She says her co-workers and students helped her stay strong. 

"While I was out, they sent me videos, they sent me cards, they kept me involved, they reached out," Nabors said. "And I fought to make it back before the school year is over because I thought it was important to me..."

Nabors fought to get back on her feet and started driving again with a prosthetic leg. Despite all her hard work, she says it was a struggle. 

"...[I] had to go by the accident spot. I'd pull into my parking spot and I would just sob because for the longest, it was feeling heartbroken for the me that was driving that morning and just didn't know what was going to happen..."

Still, Nabors decided to give back in order to move her life forward. She began with donating blood because she and her family had donated blood in the past, and it was other people's blood donations that saved her life. 

Earlier this year, she hosted a drive with the Blood Assurance clinic in Rome to recognize the anniversary of her crash. Now, it's part of her routine. 

Tackling the need for blood donations 

Blood Assurance says donors like Nabors are critical because nationwide shortages are becoming dire for some patients. Without a compatible blood donation, some patients can get sicker or may not survive.   

Last month, Blood Assurance started partnering with a company called Goodlabs to give people free blood testing when they donate. It's a move they hope will inspire more people to follow in Nabors' footsteps. 

Grant Brewster is the co-founder and CEO of Goodlabs. 

"With Goodlabs, when you come and you donate, you can get panels that are worth hundreds of dollars if you were to pay for it out of pocket with cash," Brewster said. "And this is really important, particularly for certain segments of the population: people who are potentially in the gig economy, or are on or under-insured, or people who potentially just aged out of their parents' insurance or maybe just moved to a new city and haven't set everything up."

Brewster says participating donors can also track their health trends over time with their blood donations in Goodlabs' online portal, and talk to one of their specialists to break down their results. He says their goal is to broaden access to health information that has historically been cost-prohibitive for certain communities.  

As CBS Atlanta joined Nabors for one of her blood donation appoints, she tested her iron and metabolic panel. 

"Being a runner and being active, like, I want to make sure that I'm getting the nutrients that I need and my iron stays high.//Without the donations of other people my journey to healing would not have been near the experience that I'd had if I had one at all."

Finding triumph after tragedy 

Nabors isn't stopping with blood donations. She recently ran the Boston Marathon and helped get Senate Bill 503 passed. The bill expands healthcare coverage for prosthetics. Still, she says the simple act of donating blood gets her heart pumping with gratitude. 

"When I step inside my classroom now, I think it's a different experience because I know that I'm there because of the grace of God and the willingness of others to give blood," Nabors said. "It feels good to feel like I'm giving back to the community that gave to me. But it also feels good to know that I'm going to give somebody else an extra day just like I got."

Anyone interested in donating blood through Blood Assurance while getting free blood tests through Goodlabs can visit the Goodlabs website here. 

Community members in the Rome area can enter "30165" as the zip code to find their participating blood donation center.