At 2 1/2 years old, Hannah Warren has never played outside — or been able to breathe, talk, eat or drink on her own.
She was born without a windpipe, a rare congenital condition that kept her hospitalized for her entire life in a neonatal intensive care unit, where a tube from her mouth to her lung kept her alive.
But that all changed earlier this month, when Hannah became the first child in the world to receive a bio-artificial trachea made from stem cells from her own bone marrow in a pioneering operation at Children’s Hospital of Illinois.
(WATCH the amazing video below, or READ the story from TODAY)