US teen lives 118 days without heart

A teenage girl who survived nearly four months without a human heart is released from the hospital after a successful transplant.

MORE INFO: The patient, D'Zhana Simmons of South Carolina, said the experience of living for so long with a machine pumping her blood was "scary."The doctors said they knew of another case in which an adult had been kept alive in Germany for nine months without a heart but said they believed this was the first time a child had survived in this manner for so long.

STORY:

A teenage heart patient left a Florida hospital with a brand new heart and a fascinating story to tell.

For almost 4 months, D'Zhana Simmons survived without a heart.

An unprecedented case...because Simmons is only 14.

SOUNDBITE: D'Zhana Simmons, saying, (English):

"It was like I was a fake person, like I didn't really exist. I was just here but now I know I really was here and I really did live without it."

Simmons had an enlarged heart---after a failed transplant in July, she was hooked up to an artificial heart while she waited for her second transplant--- doctors believe the procedure was a first for a patient her age.

SOUNDBITE: Marco Ricci, MD, UM-Holtz Pediatric Cardiac Surgeon, saying, (English):

"This is, we believe, the first pediatric patients who has received such a device in this configuration, without a heart, and possibly one of the youngest that has received essentially, that has been bridged to transplantation without her native heart."

Simmon's second transplant was successful--She thanked her doctors at an emotional news conference just before being released from hospital---at the end of a extraordinary medical journey.

Pavithra George, Reuters