London, Dec 31 (ANI): In what can be called as a miraculous case of survival, a girl who had almost one third of her heart removed in a life-saving operation has astonished doctors by showing full recovery.

Now 10 years old, Kirsty Collier, was born with abnormal blood vessels, which starved her heart of oxygen and was on the verge of death.

At the age of 4 months, she had suffered multiple heart attacks and surgeons at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, failed to treat her heart after a heart bypass surgery.

They warned her parents that it was almost impossible for her to survive.

However, the scenario took a dramatic turn when doctors cut away a huge section of her heart muscle to reduce pressure on the organ, hoping that it would start beating again.

Today, Kirsty is fit enough to play in school rugby and football teams, and scans have revealed that her heart has returned to a normal size and shape for a girl of her age.

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. I tried for a full 90 minutes to separate her from the heart-lung machine," Times Online quoted him as saying.

Surgeons believe that this is the first time a human heart has been shown to heal itself in such a dramatic way. (ANI)