'Organ donation has given me the gift of a normal life'

Katie still so grateful 38 years after heart and lung transplant

- By Ella Pickover

Meet and greet...Katie with Princess Diana in 1988 after recovering from op

THE longest-surviving heart and lung transplant patient in the UK says she is forever grateful to her donor's family for the "blessing" of her 38 happy years since the operation.

Katie Mitchell was just 15 when she was "given the gift of a normal life" in the breakthrough procedure.

Having been diagnosed with rare congenital heart disease Eisenmenger Syndrome at the age of 11, she had suffered irreversible heart and lung failure and doctors feared for her life.

But in 1987 she became the youngest person at the time to undergo the double transplant.

Now aged 53, and married with a stepdaughter, she remains the longest-standing survivor of the surgery and is helping inspire more recent patients.

The operations manager from Sidcup, southeast London, said: "Thanks to organ donation, I was given the gift of a normal life.