Words: Lucie van den Berg
Photography: Tim Caraffa

Baby Arielle is the youngest patient in the world to have a successful heart transplant after being kept alive on an artificial heart.

The 10-month-old’s own failing heart was irreparable, but her size and age made a happy outcome a very long shot. She was the first and the tiniest of these little sweethearts shown here to be saved by the Royal Children’s Hospital cardiac team.

Amelia McGuire, four, and Maisy Bodinnar, two, were also kept alive by the same artificial heart, called a Berlin Heart, that maintained their blood flow to receive heart transplants.

The trio spent between two weeks and five months hooked up to the life-sustaining machine.

Click here to read the full Sunday Herald Sun story.

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