A profoundly deaf patient at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) has become a viral sensation after the moment she could hear for the first time was recorded.

Joanne Milne was filmed by her mother on a mobile phone at the precise moment her life-changing cochlear implants were switched on.

The 39-year-old, from Gateshead in the North East, became overwhelmed with emotion and burst into tears when an audiology specialist at QEHB recited the days of the week.

Until that moment Joanne’s world had been completely silent, having been deaf since birth as a result of the rare condition Usher Syndrome.

Joanne, who also lost her sight to the condition in her mid-20s, had to wait several weeks following the operation before her implants were switched on.

The video capturing the switch-on shows Joanne breaking down as she says her own voice sounds "very, very strange", before adding: "Wow, it is absolutely amazing."

Joanne then reveals that the switch-on has been the "most emotional and overwhelming experience" of her life, and now has to learn to recognise all the sounds she can hear.

Her mother, Ann, said: “I wanted to record the moment when her implants were switched on. It was just wonderful and I had tears running down my face. We all did.

“She has been deaf since birth and had never heard sounds before this.

”She knew the hospital in Birmingham was one of the best to have this operation which is why she chose to come here.”

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB), which runs QEHB, is one of only 20 centres in the UK which boasts a cochlear implant programme.

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Audiology Centre became the first specialist centre in the West Midlands to be awarded national accreditation last August.

The emotional footage of Joanne’s implants being switched on was posted by her on her Facebook page.

A friend of Joanne’s then successfully applied for her to appear on DJ Lauren Laverne's BBC 6music radio feature, Memory Tape.

Following the show, Miss Laverne took to Twitter to tell her 300,000 followers how Joanne’s story had moved her crew to tears.

She tweeted: "Just watched a video of today's #MemoryTape recipient having her cochlear implant turned on and hearing for the first time. Studio in floods."

Just watched a video of today's #MemoryTape recipient having her cochlear implant turned on and hearing for the first time. Studio in floods

— Lauren Laverne (@laurenlaverne) March 26, 2014

Since then, the video has been receiving thousands of hits on Youtube.