An 11-year-old girl who as a baby became the youngest child ever to receive a donor heart valve has died in a tragic accident.

When she was just four weeks old, Katie Watson's life was saved by pioneering surgery at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital.

Born with two holes in her heart, she went on to become a normal healthy schoolgirl with a love for horse-riding.

But on Monday afternoon, while pirouetting in the street outside a swimming pool in Dunbar, Scotland, she fell and banged her head.

The blow would have been minor to most children but the shock caused Katie's weakened heart to stop.

Her father ran into Dunbar Leisure Pool in East Lothian for help but could only watch in horror as a local doctor tried to resuscitate her.

Paramedics took Katie to hospital in Edinburgh where doctors continued to try to save her but she was pronounced dead two hours later.

Last night, at her home in Throckley, Newcastle, Katie's mother Jane, a 39-year-old livery farm owner said: "It seems so cruel that she survived as a baby when the odds were so much against her only for her to die in a stupid accident like this."

Mrs Watson and her husband Tony, 40, split up in August and Katie and her brother Richard, eight, went to live with his parents in Dunbar.

The children's older brother Philip, 14, stayed at home with his mother.

Mrs Watson said: "Katie would have been 12 on Boxing Day and I wanted her to spend Christmas here with me.

"I can't believe that she has gone after everything that she has been through in her life.

"She was such a beautiful, lively, enthusiastic girl. Everyone who knew her fell in love with her.

"I was looking forward to Christmas with her and celebrating her birthday here but now all I am concerned about is getting her home where she belongs.

"The hardest thing I have ever done was to say goodbye to her at the hospital. She just looked as though she was sleeping and I said to her `Please Katie open your eyes' but of course there was nothing."

She received the tragic news in a phone call from her estranged husband on Monday.

She said: "Tony asked me if I was sitting down and told me that I should. Then he just said it.: `Jane, Katie is dead'.

"The boys told me what happened. They were outside the pool and Tony was locking up the car.

"Katie must have been excited because she was spinning round and round."

She added: "I drove up to Edinburgh. The doctors say that the blow to the head had stopped her heart because it was weak."

Katie would have needed another heart operation in the not too distant future but it would have been relatively routine compared to what she has already been through. Mrs Watson said: "After that start in life she grew up to be a very robust girl.

"She was a superb horse rider and loved her two ponies Jemma and Magic.

"She competed with me in shows and frequently took first prizes wherever she rode.

"She used to amaze visitors to the yard by leading big horses in from the field then climbing on to a five-bar gate and riding them bareback. She had no fear at all."

Friends from Katie's two schools, Heddon first school in Northumberland and nearby Richard Coates Comprehensive in Ponteland have written to Mrs Watson to express their sorrow.

Page 2: Why little Katie was so special