Imagine you’re 22 years old and have your entire life in front of you.
You graduated from school with top marks, you have a boyfriend who loves you and you’re about to start a career as a lawyer.
Then imagine that your whole life disappears in front of you, while you fight for your life in your worst nightmare.
Then a doctor turns off life support and your family says goodbye.
That was was reality for 22-year-old Sam Hemming.
Sam Hemming had always been a diligent student and she had clear goals for herself: become a lawyer and help people.
But at 22 years old, her life was destroyed.
One summer day in July 2016, Sam was driving home with her boyfriend, Tom to see their families.
But the car crashed and the couple never arrived. Sam’s boyfriend escaped with only minor injuries, but she flew through the windshield and was left in critical condition.
Sam was flown by helicopter to University Hospital Coventry, where surgeons fought to save her life.
Sam underwent three operations and had a metal plate place in her arm, which had three fractures. She also broke her neck in four places.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
The doctors had to put Sam into an artificial coma. The head trauma left one side of Sam’s brain “dead.”
After Sam had been at the hospital for 19 days, her doctors approached her mother, Carol, and told her that her daughter would never wake up again.
Sam’s mom was forced to make a decision that no parent should ever have to make. But she listened to the doctors and allowed them to turn off the machines that kept her daughter alive.
“They usually give a patient three attempts to see if they can breathe on their own before switching it for good and letting the patient die,” Carol tells the Daily Mail.
But after the doctors shut down life support, they saw something that puzzled everyone.
Just minutes after the machines were shut down, something seemed to move under Sam’s blanket.
Sam wiggled her toe. It was a sign!
Not long after that, Sam woke up and no one could believe their eyes. Everyone in the room agreed — they had witnessed a miracle.
“She had literally come back from the dead. If she hadn’t wiggled her toe, she wouldn’t be here today. Doctors are totally in shock. You see the specialized surgeons, paramedics and police and they look at Sammy and you see their mouths fall open,” Carol says.
The right side of Sam’s brain had been completely devastated in the crash, but the left had survived.
With a lot of help and hard work, Sam succeeded in learning how to walk and talk again.
Sam still has a long way to go, but she’s made amazing strides already.
Sam’s dream of being a lawyer remains firm, and if anything, it’s become even stronger since the accident.
She’s grateful to everyone who have helped her from the emergency medical team to the nurses, doctors and rehabilitation staff.
Please share if you also think that doctors and nurses deserve all the appreciation in the world for the hard work they do day and night!
