Losing a child is every parent’s worst nightmare. Every year, at least 1,000 children drown in the U.S., many of them in their own backyard pools. Julia Thrash is a young mother who knows firsthand just how easily this can happen…

One day, Julia was battling the flu and was home trying to recover with her 1 year-old daughter Jayah. Julia got up to use the bathroom and left little Jayah in the living room watching TV. When she returned, Julia went into panic mode when she saw that Jayah was gone and her backdoor was wide open.

“It’s the worst panic and anxiety and fear and everything all at one time,” Julia said.

Julia’s worst nightmare came true when she ran outside to see Jayah’s floating lifelessly in the family pool. She had been in the pool for around five minutes when Julia frantically pulled her out and performed CPR.

“It’s like your worst nightmare ever coming true, you know you hear about it all the time, and then it’s actually happening in your own house, in your own pool, with your own child,” she recalled.

Jayah was rushed to Banner Thunderbird Medical Center, where doctors gave her mother some devastating news.

“We’re sorry; there is nothing more we can do,” she remembers being told.

Jayah was pronounced dead one hour after she was found in the pool. Making matters worse, police found Jayah’s death suspicious and launched a murder investigation.

Just after Jayah was declared dead, however, the medical team was stunned to see that she had started breathing again!

“…I just looked at her like I didn’t understand what language she was speaking, because we had for an hour been sitting there, told our baby was gone,” Julia said of the moment a nurse told her that Jayah was still alive.  “She had a bounding pulse, her heart just started beating, just like that. She had been laying on the table, and she just started beating again.”

Sure enough, Jayah was back!

Julia and her husband were told that Jayah was not out of the woods yet. Because the child was without a pulse for so long, it was feared that she would never be able to function normally.

“They really didn’t think that she would ever recover,” Julia said. “Kids just don’t recover from drownings. It was awful to sit and see her like that and not know, is her brain going to work? Is she ever going to be okay? Will she ever talk again? Will she ever do anything like she did before? It was tough because we didn’t know.”

However, against all odds, Jayah made a full recovery! In fact, an MRI showed that there was no sign of any brain damage at all!

Jayah spent a few weeks in the hospital, where she learned how to walk, talk, and even smile again. Doctors and nurses alike told Julia that they had never seen anything like this in their lives. A few weeks later, Jayah was finally able to go home!

“I’m just thankful and thankful to God for giving us this gift and to be able to sit here and say to you, I have a miracle, and it’s Jayah. it’s amazing,” Julia said.

This story serves as a reminder that miracles really do happen! Find out more about this story in the video below, and please SHARE so your friends and family can see it as well!