'Miracle' Mom and Baby 'Dead' in Labor, Revived

Dec. 29, 2009 — -- In what is being hailed as a Christmas "miracle," a young mother died during labor with a still-born baby on Christmas Eve but both mom and baby came back to life just minutes later, before the eyes of the nearly heartbroken, stunned father.

"Half of my family was lying there right in front of me -- there's no other way to say it -- dead," Mike Hermanstorfer told ABC News' Colorado affiliate KRDO. "I lost all feeling. Once her heartbeat stopped, I felt like mine did too."

Hermanstorfer's wife, Tracey, had suffered cardiac arrest while she was in labor at Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs.

"They were getting ready to put a catheter in and I closed my eyes and don't remember anything after that," Tracey said.

She had no pulse, no heartbeat, was not breathing and was turning "gray," Dr. Stephanie Martin, director of maternal fetal medicine at Colorado's Memorial Hospital, told CBS News' Colorado affiliate KKTV. "She was dead."

"I sat there with my wife's hand in mine, ice cold," Mike told KKTV.

After trying to revive Tracey for several minutes to no avail, doctors ordered an emergency C-section with no anesthesia in an attempt to save the baby. The baby was delivered, but it too was not breathing.

But then Mike and the doctors were astounded when Tracey's pulse returned, just after birth. Doctors quickly wheeled Tracey into surgery to complete the C-section. Then, while the mom was being operated on, other doctors worked to get the baby breathing again and eventually it came back as well.