A 21-year-old woman has undergone a heart and lung transplant after three years of waiting.

Katherine Ireland from Cononley, near Skipton, who suffers cystic fibrosis, underwent the six-hour operation at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital.

Doctors contacted her last Saturday with news they had a donor and she went into the operating theatre at midnight.

Her mum, Jan Ireland, said: "She is doing so well, it's just wonderful. It's like a miracle.

"We went to see her on Sunday morning and she waved at us through the airlock in the hospital ward."

Katherine's disease meant she got out of breath easily and found walking up and down stairs difficult due to her lungs' inability to absorb oxygen into her body.

She had to spend several hours each day linked to an oxygen bottle, as well as taking drugs.

Jan added: "Doctors told us she was as well as she could ever have been before they attempted the operation. She's breathing like she's never done before in the last 18 months.

"We got to the stage where we thought it wasn't going to happen because Katherine has so many friends waiting for transplants and we thought it was going to be the same for her."

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