THE parents of a three-year-old girl have paid tribute to the skills of North-East doctors after a procedure which helped to save her life and made medical history.

Richard and Gillian Hall, from Lenzie, near Glasgow, said they could not find the words to express their gratitude to the team at the Freeman heart unit in Newcastle.

Abigail, their first child, would have died without being flown from Glasgow to Newcastle and put on a revolutionary mechanical life-support device known as the Berlin Heart.

Born with a severe heart abnormality, which meant she only had one pumping chamber instead of two, Abigail was doomed without a transplant.

She and her mother were flown to the Freeman from Scotland on November 29, last year, after a donor heart became available.

But their hopes were dashed after it became clear that the donor heart was unsuitable.

Within hours, the little girl's condition deteriorated and her parents were asked if she could be put on a Berlin Heart machine to buy her time until another heart became available.

Mr Hall, an architect, said doctors warned them there were no guarantees, as other children had died in similar circumstances.

Mrs Hall said: "They told us she could probably only manage a couple of weeks without a new heart. We sent frantic messages to everyone we knew telling them to pray that a heart would become available."

Their prayers were answered on December 10 when Abigail was given a new heart.

A month later, she was allowed to go home and doctors are pleased with her progress.

Mr Hall said; "She has more energy now than she ever has. The colour of her skin has changed as well - her lips used to be blue and now they are pink."

"She is looking forward to starting nursery school and is full of beans," said Mrs Hall, who said the Freeman staff had performed "a miracle".

"We are just overjoyed," the primary school teacher added.

Dr Richard Kirk, a consultant paediatric cardiologist and a member of the team which saved Abigail's life, described her situation as "enormously challenging".

He said that the procedure had been tried several times before with children in similar circumstances, but unsuccessfully.

"Abigail is the first child in the world to undergo this procedure and leave hospital alive.

"It is a tribute to the technology developed by the Berlin Heart Institute and the tremendous teamwork here at the Freeman," he said.

Outside Germany, the Freeman Hospital has used the Berlin Heart life-support device on more child patients than any other centre in the world.

Connected by four tubes to the chest, the computer-controlled pump mimics the action of the heart.

In Abigail's case the device was no bigger than a mandarin orange, said Dr Kirk.