'Miracle Baby' Dies, Then Comes Back to Life

March 1, 2007 — -- Doctors say they've never seen anything like it: A little boy who was pronounced dead came back to life 30 minutes later.

It all happened so fast. One minute 2-week-old Woody Lander was a healthy little boy, the next he was turning white and struggling to breathe.

His parents rushed him to the hospital in Leeds, England, in December 2005.

"I just walked in to see poor Woody laid, spread-eagled on the … table with about 20 nurses and doctors all round him applying heart massage and it was like that for 30 minutes," said Jon Lander, Woody's father, on "Good Morning America."

The baby had a heart attack, and the doctor pronounced the baby dead.

"He had to say they could not do anymore for poor Woody," Jon said.

Woody's mother, Karen Lander, was overcome with emotion.

"They gave him to me to say goodbye. But … it was too much for me," she said. "I couldn't handle it so I gave him to Jon and just as one of the doctors or the nurses was removing the tube from his mouth he coughed. Woody coughed."

The doctors immediately went into action.

"One of the doctors, they didn't say anything. They whipped him out of my arms and asked us to leave," Karen said.

The doctors got a pulse.

"His heart was beating," Jon said. "And the little fella came back to life."

According to one doctor, children's natural resilience may have accounted for what many are calling a miracle.

"It is true that children have a special resilience. They are really not small adults," said Gregory Fontana of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. "They have characteristics that allow them to survive incredible circumstances."

"This case clearly represents nothing short of a miracle," Fontana said.

Doctors say Woody, now 14 months old, seems absolutely fine after his ordeal; it caused no brain damage and no lasting health problems.