Amazing footage has emerged showing the moment when 40-year-old Joanne Milne who has been deaf since birth, hears for the first time.

Her mother recorded the heart-wrenching moment, as an audiology specialist at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital recites the days of the week to her.

Milne, who is from Gateshead, suffers from the rare condition, Usher Syndrome, which also claimed her sight in her mid-twenties.

She said: "The switch-on was the most emotional and overwhelming experience of my life and I'm still in shock now. The first day everybody sounded robotic and I have to learn to recognise what these sounds are as I build a sound library in my brain.

"Hearing things for the first time is so, so emotional, from the ping of a light switch to running water. I can't stop crying."

She was fitted with the implants last month and faced an agonising wait before the device could be switched on and tested.

Related