A STUDENT who suffered from a chronic cardiac condition is on the mend after receiving a new heart.

Charlotte Carney, 21, underwent a heart transplant operation this month, having been diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure at a heart screening in 2016.

A forensic psychology student at Liverpool John Moores University, Charlotte – who has not revealed the date of the operation to protect the donor’s family – is still in hospital but hopes to be home within the next week.

She wrote on her blog – charlotteshearttransplantstory.co.uk – that the call had come about suddenly one morning, and she had rushed to Wythenshawe Hospital with her parents and boyfriend, Ciaran.

Charlotte wrote: “At about 10am I had a phone call from a private number, I sort of rolled off the bed and thought ‘ugh I’m going to have to answer this’ and thank god I did.

“They asked how I was and said they potentially had a heart for me and could I get to the hospital, I said yes of course and called my mum,

“Obviously it went to voicemail and she texted me and said ‘I’m at pilates is it urgent?’ And I said ‘yes need to get to the hospital!’”

Heart transplant operations take around four hours, and must begin within around four hours of the heart being removed from the donor.

Charlotte spent seven days in an induced coma in the intensive care unit, and boyfriend Ciaran has also posted his recollections of the week on charlotteshearttransplantstory.co.uk

Charlotte is now on the mend.

She wrote: “Thank you to everyone for your cards, gifts, messages, well wishes, I’ve never felt so loved and cared for.

“And I’m so grateful for all my family that were at the hospital the whole time I was asleep and for their constant love and support.

“And I am beyond grateful for the family of my donor for making the difficult decision to donate their organs and save my life, for all the surgeons, doctors and nurses for taking such good care of me.”

A previous post, in which Charlotte shared her ‘transplant assessment’ days experience at Wythenshawe Hospital, said that without surgery, there was only a 20 per cent chance that she would survive to 2020.

She also appeared on ITV’s This Morning prior to her operation, advocating the proposed organ donation law change which would introduce an ‘opt-out’ system and could be named ‘Max’s Law’ after Winsford transplant patient Max Johnson.