Prince Harry to present soldier's medal to hospital which helped save her life

Prince Harry will today present an Invictus Games gold medal, won by a US soldier, to medical staff from a UK hospital which helped save the servicewoman's life.

Sergeant Elizabeth Marks asked Harry to donate the medal to Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire which treated her after she became gravely ill in London two years ago.

The combat medic was due to compete in the 2014 Invictus Games, for injured service personnel and veterans, when she collapsed with a serious lung condition and was put into an induced coma.

The soldier was diagnosed with respiratory distress syndrome and a medical team from Papworth used an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) life support system to successfully treat her.

Sgt Marks dedicated her 100-metre freestyle gold medal to the Papworth team, one of four gold medals she won in the pool during the 2016 Invictus Games staged earlier this month in Orlando, Florida.

She has revealed she cried like a baby when the hospital tweeted its thanks following her decision to donate the gold medal.

The 25-year-old soldier from Arizona, who joined the US army aged 17, suffered a serious hip injury in 2010 in Iraq, which left her with no sensation in her left leg, but she has battled back to fitness and still serves in the military.

She has used sport to help her recovery and continues to swim despite it rendering her temporarily blind and faint due to a lung condition.