A 20-month-old girl found face down in a swimming pool and pronounced dead by doctors was found alive forty minutes later when a police investigator examining her body noticed the little girl was still breathing.
Doctors in Fullerton, California were able to revive Mackayala Jespersen who is now listed in critical condition.
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''It was a very emotional moment for everyone,'' said Sgt. Ron Gillett, a police spokesman told the Associated Press. ''We thought she didn't make it and then she did. It was the lowest of the lows and the highest of the highs.''
Mackayala was found in the pool by her mother after apparently slipping through a sliding glass door and into the backyard.
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Police officers who responded to the 9-1-1 call performed CPR but the toddler was pronounced dead about an hour after her tumble into the pool.
Forty minutes later, a detective looking at her body for the police report noticed her chest going up and down.
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Mark Langdorf, chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, Irvine, told AP it's not uncommon for toddlers to survive drownings after showing little or no signs of life, especially if the water is cold.
"We don't know if it is a miracle yet. She is doing as good as she can," a man who identified himself as the girl's grandfather told the Los Angeles Times.
