JERUSALEM–A newborn pronounced dead by doctors in a Galilee hospital "came back to life" after spending hours in a hospital refrigerator.
The baby, weighing not quite 1 pound, 4 ounces (600 grams) at birth, spent at least five hours inside a hospital's refrigerated storage unit before her parents, who had taken her to be buried, began noticing some movement Monday.
"We unwrapped her and felt she was moving. We didn't believe it at first. Then she began holding my mother's hand, and then we saw her open her mouth," said Faiza Magdoub, 26, the baby's mother.
The girl had been pronounced dead several hours earlier, after doctors at Western Galilee hospital in northern Israel were forced to abort her mother's pregnancy because internal bleeding had occurred.
Magdoub was 23 weeks into her pregnancy.
"We don't know how to explain this so, when we don't know how to explain things in the medical world, we call it a miracle, and this is probably what happened," hospital deputy director Moshe Daniel said.
Joy and wonder at the miracle was short-lived, however, as the girl survived less than 24 hours, dying in hospital early Tuesday.
Motti Ravid, an internal medicine professor, told Israel's Channel 10 the low temperature in the cooler had slowed the baby's metabolism and likely helped her stay alive.
