Woman reunited with her heart-lung transplant surgeon at Cambridge's Papworth hospital 35 years on

• Watch a report by ITV News Anglia's Matthew Hudson

A woman has been reunited with the surgeon who carried out her lifesaving heart and lung transplant operation 35 years ago.

Before she had the operation at the age of 15 in 1987, Katie Mitchell was so breathless that she could barely climb the stairs.

Prof John Wallwork, 76, was her surgeon and on Thursday she was reunited with him in an emotional moment at Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, as part of Organ Donation Week.

"Without him I wouldn't be here," she said.

"I've always just tried to do everything the same as any other normal person. So I've always worked full time, gone on holidays with friends, got married.

"You can never forget about it because you're still taking the tablets every day, but you try to just be as normal as possible."

Ms Mitchell, from Sidcup in Kent, had been diagnosed at age 11 with Eisenmenger Syndrome, where there is irregular blood flow in the heart and lungs, which leads to heart failure and irreversible lung damage.

At first it had been thought she might be asthmatic.

In 1987, when she was close to death through congenital heart disease there was no treatment for it and most patients died before the age of 30.

In stepped Prof John Wallwork and his team. When Ms Mitchell's operation was performed, she was one of the youngest patients to have the procedure and she is now among the longest survivors.

Ms Mitchell, 50, who lives with her husband Lex James, 57, said that the time of her operation was "probably very worrying for my parents, looking back".

She said that before her operation she "couldn't really even walk upstairs or downstairs in the house.

"If I went up to bed that was it and it would take me 20 minutes or half an hour to get there.

"It was quite bad at the end."

Describing the change after, she said: "I was so breathless and so blue from not getting any oxygen that literally as soon as I woke up from the surgery I was very pink and I could breathe and I remember thinking how easy it was to breathe compared to the day before.

"It made such a big difference."

Prof Wallwork, now chairman of Royal Papworth Hospital, said that at the time of the operation there was not the experience to predict how long people may live for.

"Thirty-five years is exceptional, there's no doubt," he added.

Asked what it was like to be reunited with Ms Mitchell 35 years on, he said: "It does gladden my heart and it's a wonderful thing to see people who are really, really ill, who have not only lived long - but have lived long well.

"She's obviously very well and enjoying her life."

Ms Mitchell's lifelong friend Samantha Hardwich added: "It's really not possible to find the words to describe what that means to us as a family.

"None of that would have been possible without the donor family, John, and his team and Katie being brave enough to take it on, though arguably she didn't have much choice."

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