Nine-year-old Tricia Withrow makes her open heart surgery a few years ago sound pretty simple.

She said, "My heart was hurting, and they told me I had four holes in my heart, so they told me they had to patch i up and stitch it and stuff." She said the doctors in Morgantown held her heart in their hands, fixed it, and put it back in."

She looks and sounds just like any other typical kid entertaining others and full of life. Before her procedure, she couldn't do any of the things she loves to do.

"I couldn't ride horses, I couldn't ride a four-wheeler, I couldn't ride a bike, I couldn't ride nothing," Tricia said.

Tricia was born with a congenital heart defect. It's something thousand of babies are born with each year.

Her guardian Linda Branham said, "We found out when she was born that she had a problem, and they told us that they would make sure by the time she was six if it hadn't corrected that they would do the surgery, and it never did seal up, so they had to do the surgery."

Anywhere from 650,000 to 1.3 million people are living with heart defects.

Tricia is working with the American Heart Association, sharing her story of survival and encouraging the community to get involved. Her family has seen how life-changing Tricia's surgery has been. Branham says she's so happy to see Tricia doing everything she loves to do.

If you want to be a part of the Charleston Start Heart Walk, it's Saturday, September 18 at the Capitol complex. Registration is at 8:00, and the walk begins at 9:00 a.m.

You can find out more about the AHA at "www.heart.org."