Deaf Woman's Incredible Reaction As She Hears For The First Time (Video)

Deaf Woman's Incredible Reaction As She Hears For The First Time (Video)
Get your hanky ready before you watch this clip.

Filmed by her mum, it captures the moment deaf 39-year-old Joanne Milne hears for the very time thanks to cochlear implants.

As Joanne sits in a chair, the clip starts with her therapist making the understatement of the year as she says: "It might be a bit overwhelming at first."

Then she recites the days of the week and Joanne becomes utterly overwhelmed with joy, bursting into tears and holding her head in disbelief.

Can you even begin to imagine? What a moment!

As her therapist says in another understatement: "It's a big, big life-changing day today."

And some!

Joanne, from Gateshead, was born deaf and during her 20s she also began to lose her sight due to the rare medical condition Usher syndrome.

After her brain adjusted to the high-pitched sounds and she had come to terms with the breakthrough, Joanne 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.

"I can already foresee how it's going to be life changing and the implants will get better and better over time. I'm so, so happy."

Joanne, who works for charity Sense, said she was now a lot more aware of things around her.

She thanked the team at the Midlands Implant Centre at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, for the procedure, which was carried out last month.

In an interview with BBC WM, her mum Ann said: "She is just overwhelmed by it all.To be able to hear footsteps and we went out for a meal and she said she could actually hear the clinking of the plate when she was eating. Things we just take for granted."

And chatting with Radio Five Live's Victoria Derbyshire this morning, Joanne described hearing her young nieces' voices for the first time, adding: "I can't believe how beautiful the sound of children's voices is."

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