A 15-year-old girl who was "scared of being different" was recovering in hospital with her family at her bedside yesterday after undergoing a heart transplant against her wishes.
Doctors at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne had gone to the High Court in London seeking a legal ruling compelling the youngster to have the life-saving operation.
Child M, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was "close to death" awaiting a suitable donor after suffering heart failure in May. She had the transplant in the last few days.
Her mother had consented to the operation but M, despite counselling from doctors and nurses and from the hospital chaplain, would not agree to it.
Her plight emerged when Mr Justice Johnson, an experienced Family Division judge, explained the reasons for his decision to back the doctors in "non-legal language" because he wanted the girl to read them in hospital.
M told lawyers: "If I had someone else's heart, I would be different from anybody else - being dead would not make me different from anyone else.
"I would feel different with someone else's heart, that's a good enough reason not to have a heart transplant, even if it saved my life."
She said she realised that if she did not have the operation she would die.
"I really don't want a transplant - I am not happy with it - I don't want to die.
"It's hard to take it all in. I feel selfish. If I had the transplant I wouldn't be happy. If I were to die my family would be sad.
"Death is final - I know I can't change my mind," she said. "I would rather die with 15 years of my own heart."