Story of survival: Where the face of the 1991 Good Friday Appeal is now
The woman who was the face of the Good Friday Appeal as a little girl in 1991 has had a daughter of her own, in a remarkable story of beating the odds.
Victoria ‘Tori’ was born with only three chambers in her heart, instead of four, was missing a valve and had two main arteries which directed to the wrong places.
As an 18-month-old the WA child underwent lifesaving surgery at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.
At the time, doctors couldn’t give a prognosis on how long Tori’s life would be.
But now, aged in her 30s, Tori has not only survived — she’s thrived.
She recently gave birth to a daughter — Ella. It wasn’t an easy birth due to her complex heart condition, with Tori spending several days in intensive care and Ella in the neonatal intensive care unit for more than a month
Tori’s mother, Marina Denn, says the complications “actually brought back a lot of what she went through when she was little”.
But the new mum says “every second” of the difficult birth was worth it.
Press PLAY below to hear Tori’s remarkable story of survival
