GIRL WHO COULD DIE AT ANY SECOND

SITTING happily with her school books, Kirsty Howard seems like any other teenage girl. When she isn’t preparing for her GCSE exams she loves having her hair highlighted, visiting the cinema or going for a Chinese meal with friends.

Her bedroom is adorned with posters of idol Robert Pattinson and she has just dumped her first boyfriend.

But every day the 16-year-old has to cope with the reality that she could die at any second after being born with a heart with nine serious defects.

She has defied doctors who said when she was four that she had six weeks to live. But she is constantly hooked up to an oxygen cylinder and her inoperable condition is so rare that there is no name for it.

Kirsty, who also has misplacement of her internal organs, requires ongoing treatment, But she says: “I feel lucky. I’ve got a great life and great friends. I’m just normal — I have my nails and hair done.

Brave Kirsty, from Wythenshawe, Greater Manchester, has made a wish at Rome’s Trevi Fountain that one day she will become a mum.

For now, “normal life” has involved helping others.

As a child, she was picked to head the £5million Kirsty Club appeal for Manchester’s Francis House Children’s Hospice.

Her charity work led to her appearing at the Commonwealth Games with David Beckham and meeting Prince Charles.

The target was hit by 2006 and the Kirsty Club is now trying to raise another £3.6million to extend the hospice.

And 70 runners in tomorrow’s Great Manchester Run - where Kirsty is one of the starters - will be there for the appeal.

Kirsty, who hopes to be a teacher, says: “I just want to help others. It makes me happy.” (thesun.co.uk)