Former Miss Virginia Barbara Guthrie Lay was admitted to the hospital on December 20 due to breathing troubles related to her Covid-19 diagnosis. The 82-year-old beauty queen who was crowned Miss Virginia in 1958, now resides in Martinsville, GA, and had contracted the virus from her neighbor.

“She lives in a townhouse in Georgia, and a kid next door got COVID,” said longtime friend Howard Huff. “Her neighbor doesn’t believe in wearing a mask, and the kid’s mother came over to talk to Barbara. Next thing we know, she’s [in the hospital and] on a ventilator.”

Her husband Tony rushed her to Wellstar North Fulton Hospital in suburban Roswell when she started having difficulty breathing and she was immediately admitted. On Christmas Eve, the hospital notified Barbara’s son, Thom Kelley, that his mother had passed away.

After breaking the news to Tony, Thom received the most surprising phone call of his life. The hospital called back and shared the shocking news that when they stopped their attempts to revive Barbara, miraculously they detected a faint pulse. Tony Lay immediately rushed to the hospital to be with his bride.

“I stood outside her ICU room for about two hours, looking at her,” he said to the MARTINSVILLE BULLETIN. “They would not let me go in and speak to her or touch her. They were afraid the stress would be too much for her heart.

“I was overjoyed and tearful again,” Tony continued. “I went from being miserable and brokenhearted to overjoyed.”

Overjoyed but pensive, Tony was sent home for the night and told to not be surprised if received another call in the middle of the night saying Barbara really had passed this time.

“They told me if she crashed again, there would be nothing they could do because her heart couldn’t stand another resuscitation—that would kill her.”

Barbara was put into a medically induced coma and placed on a ventilator. Her heart was only functioning at about 10%, and the longer she went without making improvements, the less likely it would be that she would ever recover.

“Suddenly her heart function improved from 10% to 25%, and they were hoping to bring her out of the coma, but they decided to leave her another day for her lungs to improve,” Howard Huff shared.

But by Sunday December 27, Barbara had apparently had enough and her nurses were surprised to walk into her room to find her sitting up in bed and demanding to see Tony.

That evening her son Thom, who is also a physician, spoke with his mother’s doctors who told him that “If she continues to improve, they may be able to switch her oxygen to a nasal prong, which is a huge step forward,” Kelley said. “As a physician, I will say without hesitation there is only one word for what has happened over the past week—a miracle.”

But those who know Barbara Lay and her tenacious spirit aren’t all that surprised that the octogenarian is still fighting. Tony Lay says his wife has always said she plans on living until at least 101 years so she and Tony can celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary.