A TODDLER whose will to live astounded doctors is back home at last with a new heart and a bright future.

Hannah Carty was being kept alive by a plastic heart after chemotherapy for leukaemia damaged her own and led to a stroke.

But thanks to a heart transplant at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital, Hannah, who was born with Down's syndrome, is back at home in Wallsend, North Tyneside, with parents Stephen and Elaine for the first time in nearly eight months.

Three-year-old Hannah is one of only two Down's syndrome babies in England who have had a heart transplant. She has amazed doctors with her progress less than a month after surgery.

Her mother said: "I cannot really explain how it feels to have her back home with us.

"I feel like we have won the lottery ten times over.

"At one point not so long ago, we thought we had lost her and we had even kissed her goodbye and started talking about her funeral, but she has fought on."