BRAVEHEART: BABY GIRL SURVIVES HEART SWELLING TO SIZE OF ORANGE
A baby girl has become the youngest British patient to receive a life-saving cardiac operation after her heart swelled to twice its normal size within days of her birth. Little Phoebe Whittle was just four weeks old when medics had to battle to save her life from a congenital defect which gave her tiny heart only a third of the oxygen it needed to work. Mum Charlotte 27, and husband Carl, 32, looked on in horror as she failed to breathe normally and turned blue within days of being born. Phoebe had been born with ALCAPA, Anomalous Left Coronary Artery from the Pulmonary Artery, that meant the artery to her heart muscle was connected incorrectly, starving it of oxygen.As a result, Phoebe's heart ballooned to twice its size - swelling from the size of a walnut to the size of an apple. But incredibly, the tiny tot - dubbed 'Braveheart' by her proud parents, made a stunning recovery following groundbreaking surgery at Alder Hey Children's Hospital
Other great stories
ABANDONED WILD WEST THEME PARK
The gunslingers are long gone and tumbleweeds have taken over at this abandoned American Wild West Theme Park in Cornwall .
BEAR AND FOX IN SHOWDOWN
This is the moment a nimble red fox and a lumbering Alaskan brown bear were locked in a tense stand-off .
STOLEN £2K BULLDOG REUNITED WITH FAMILY VIA TWITTER
STOLEN £2K BULLDOG REUNITED WITH FAMILY VIA TWITTER - A £2,000 bulldog puppy snatched from her home by burglars has been reunited with her family thanks to Twitter .
PREGOREXIC MUM GIVES BIRTH TO HEALTHY BABY
A mum who weighed just 8st 1lb at eight months pregnant has battled her eating disorder to give birth to a healthy baby girl .
STORM CHASER PHOTOGRAPHS STUNNING EXTREME WEATHER
These photographs of extreme weather capture storms furiously rolling across the sky above America .
GIVE US A KISS - CHEEKY ORANGUTAN PUCKERS UP FOR CAMERA
SHOWING off her best assets for the camera, this cheeky orangutan is in the mood for love, puckering up her lips to blow the biggest kiss she can .
SNAP-SHOT - 18 FOOT CROCODILE SAVAGELY KILLS WILDEBEEST
This daredevil wildebeest tried a walk on the wild side - straight into the snatches of a huge 18 foot crocodile .
ADORABLE OWLS SHELTER FROM THE RAIN
HUDDLING under a leaf, a pair of adorable Javan scops owls take shelter from the rain .
‘WORLD’S SMALLEST CINEMA’ IN OAP’S HOUSE
Pic By HotSpot Media - ‘WORLD’S SMALLEST CINEMA’ IN OAP’S HOUSE -IN PIC- AN OAP film buff has brought the big screen to his home and built the world's smallest cinema in his BEDROOM .
FATHER-OF-ONE STUNS WIFE AFTER REVEALING POLE DANCING SECRET
A father-of-one stunned his wife of twenty-five years after revealing his secret love of POLE DANCING .
ENTER THE LOST WORLD
Some will get up close and personal with Mother Nature’s deadliest animals to get the perfect shot, posing the question, what lengths will a photographer go to for that all important picture? But in this case, the question should be what depths .