MEDICAL MIRACLE: Marko Dutschak was paralysed from the chest down by a cyst (Europics)

Marko Dutschak from Murau, central Austria, was paralysed from the chest down after the procedure to remove the cyst that had crushed his spinal cord.

Chief neurosurgeon Hans Georg Eder said: "The condition had left him with a spinal cord as thin as a piece of cotton thread. There was virtually nothing left."

He added: "In medical terms we don't talk of miracles, but the boy’s recovery was not medically expected and is really a sensation. The cyst had completely surrounded the spinal cord, which was as thin as a thread inside it.

"Yet now he has learned to walk again. It illustrates to a remarkable extent the healing abilities of the very young that greatly surpass that of adults."

His mum Sandra recalled how she arrived for a visit one morning and found Marco strolling around the balcony of his private hospital room, as reported by the Austrian Times.