A WOMAN who has had four kidney transplants, three heart attacks, and 400 blood transfusions, has thanked the families of the donors who helped her stay alive.

Amanda Glasgow, 36, of Gateshead, who has a son Josh, four, had her first transplant at the age of 13, a kidney from her mother Joan Dodds, who died two years ago.

Over the years she has received organs from a man who died in a motorbike crash, an overdose victim, and now a man who suffered a brain haemorrhage.

She said yesterday: "I like to think that the families of the men who died take comfort in the fact that their deaths gave me a chance of a normal life. I am deeply grateful for their sacrifice. I have a little boy, a wonderful husband and lovely home, and everything to live for."

Mrs Glasgow's first kidneys failed in 1979 because toxins weren't being flushed out of her body properly.