A girl who had almost a third of her heart removed in a desperate attempt to save her life has made a complete recovery, doctors say.

Kirsty Collier was not expected to live long. She was born with abnormal blood vessels, which starved her heart of oxygen. Aged 4 months, she had suffered multiple heart attacks and was on the brink of death.

Surgeons at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, had been unable to restart her heart after a heart bypass operation and warned her parents that she was unlikely to survive.

But everything changed when they cut away a huge section of muscle to reduce pressure on the heart, in the hope that it would start beating again.

Kirsty is now a sporty, healthy ten-year-old, and to the astonishment of doctors, her heart appears to have returned to a normal size.

Professor Stephen Westaby, who operated on her in 1998, called her recovery miraculous.

“She was essentially dead and was only resurrected by what I regarded at the time as a completely bizarre operation,” he said. “I tried for a full 90 minutes to separate her from the heart-lung machine.”

With nothing to lose, he cut open Kirsty’s heart, removed a third of her muscle wall and stitched it back together.

“I have to confess I never thought it would work,” he said. “It [the heart] was an awful lot smaller.”

Scans show that her heart is now the normal size and shape for a girl of her age. Surgeons believe that this is the first time a human heart has been shown to heal itself in such a dramatic way.

Professor Westaby added: “We were astonished. A recent MRI scan has shown the scar on the heart has disappeared. I find that absolutely fascinating because an adult heart wouldn’t do that.”

Kirsty’s mother, Becky Collier, 38, from Cirencester, Gloucestershire, recalled seeing her daughter in the recovery room: “There she was, my tiny baby, with tubes everywhere. But I could tell by looking at her that she would keep going.”

Kirsty is now fit enough to play in school rugby and football teams.

Mrs Collier added: “It’s amazing what she has overcome. She’s such a brave little girl and has never let her condition affect her life at all. She’s always out playing something. It’s hard to imagine that she was ill.”

But Kirsty doesn’t want a fuss over her recovery. “I don’t want to be different to anyone else just because I’ve had a heart operation,” she said. “I like to do sport because it keeps me fit and healthy.”

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