He had three heart attacks in three hours at just three weeks old.
After the first, Alfie Green's heart stopped for 17 minutes but, incredibly, it started again.
It then stopped for ten minutes after the second attack and two minutes after the third and again he pulled through.
And despite fears that he would be left with massive brain damage, and a week on a ventilator during which his condition was touch and go, he has made a full recovery.
The baby’s resilience stunned doctors who had almost given up on bringing him back to life. They said his brain seemed to have repaired itself.
His mother Stacey, 24, said: “I didn’t even know that someone so young could even have a heart attack let alone three.
When his heart stopped beating for so long we really thought we had lost him. But he’s such a little fighter. When it started beating again I just cried with relief.”
Alfie was born weighing a healthy 6lb2 (2.8kg) in September. Three weeks later Green and her partner Leonard Bratt, 25, took him out shopping near their home when he stopped breathing. Green, a special needs teaching assistant, said: “a few days previously I had noticed that his breathing was quicker”.
“I took him to the doctors who listened to his chest and said he was fine.
“But then he suddenly became very unsettled when we were out shopping and as I was trying to soothe him his lips started to turn purple. Then he stopped breathing. It was terrifying.” Bratt called paramedics and Alfie was taken to Newcross Hospital in Wolverhampton, where doctors said he had suffered a heart attack and his heart had stopped for 17 minutes.
They tried to resuscitate him, and finally he began breathing again. But the ordeal was far from over.
In the next two hours, Alfie had two further heart attacks, his heart stopping for 10 minutes and then two minutes. Each time, doctors managed to restart his heart, but a CT scan showed bleeding had severely damaged the left side of his brain. Green said: “The doctors told us that if Alfie did pull through, it was likely that the only thing he would be able to do was breathe.”
The following day the couple had Alfie christened in his hospital bed, but still he hung on. Green said: “I called his name and he turned his head to look at me, so I knew that he was still fighting on.”
After nearly a week on a ventilator, he was well enough to breathe on his own. And three weeks later he was allowed back to the family home in Wolverhampton with medication to stabilise his heart rate.
Green said: “Thankfully we have had no more scares. He has reached all his developmental milestones. An ultrasound has shown his brain is normal and the doctors said it was amazing, but his brain appeared to have mended itself.
“If he survived three heart attacks at three weeks old, he’s strong enough to survive anything.” - Daily Mail