News, views and top stories in your inbox. Don't miss our must-read newsletter Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Anne Higgs has no pulse of her own but she’s still very much alive... thanks to an ­electric heart.

The 56-year-old grandmother is one of only a handful of people in the world to have been fitted with a mechanical heart which runs off mains electricity.

She says: “All my friends call me the Electric Gran. I’m powered by batteries by day and by the 240-volt mains at night.”

Anne has an electric cord coming out of her stomach and her nightly routine involves turning off her bedside lamp, kissing partner Derek goodnight, and plugging herself in.

She said: “I no longer have a pulse. My heart’s still there beating but the blood doesn’t flow through it. The blood goes through the mechanical one.

“After the op, the doctors gave us a stethoscope to listen to my heart.

"Instead of a beat it’s a swishing sound... like a twin-tub washing machine.

"If I go on long car journeys, to give my batteries a bit of extra life I plug myself into the ­cigarette lighter!”

She was fitted with the ­titanium device after a major heart attack in March 2009.

“I was lying in bed and I woke up with what I thought was ­terrible indigestion,” she said.

“I took some aspirin but an hour later woke up drenched in sweat and screaming in pain. I could feel myself slipping away.

"I thought, ‘Am I going to die or am I going to live?’ The grim reaper was stood by my side that night.”

(Image: ©JK Press pic John Alevroyiannis)

Anne was rushed to hospital and had emergency surgery to put two stents in her heart.

“Afterwards they told me I needed a heart transplant and I was put on the list,” she said.

A year later she was ­referred to the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle where she met a pioneering team led by Prof Stephan Schueler.

Anne, from Newbiggin, Northumberland, said: “By the time I got to them I’d deteriorated so much I was crawling around like a dog.

"I couldn’t breathe, walk or keep food down.”

“As soon as they saw me they said, ‘We want you back in four days for your mechanical heart.’ ‘My what?’ I said.

"‘A heart made of titanium,’ they told me. ‘We’ll soon have you back on your feet,”

Before the operation Anne was confined to a wheelchair.

“As I recovered I got a zimmer at first, but now it’s collecting dust in the shed. I’ve definitely been given a second chance.”

Anne, who ran a sandwich shop before her heart attack, is cared for by Derek, a former engineer. She has a daughter Samantha, 36, and two young grandchildren. She added: “I’m so grateful. I’m still on the transplant list but now I’m not worried about dying before a heart comes along with my name on it.”

Professor Norman Williams, of the Royal College Of Surgeons, said: “This is a wonderful example of surgical innovation in the UK which is saving the lives of patients who may otherwise have died before receiving a heart transplant.

"Currently only two per cent of money given by government for medical research is spent on surgical research.

"We are calling for greater investment as it can save or dramatically improve patients’ lives.”

For more information go online to www.rcseng.ac.uk/surgeons/research