TORONTO – A woman amazingly gave birth to a 5-pound 2-ounce baby as her casket was being lowered into a grave – 23 hours after she died!

“I’ve been a doctor for 22 years and if this isn’t a miracle and a medical first, I don’t know what is,” said the physician who pronounced the woman dead after she suffered massive head and chest injuries in an automobile accident in Toronto last April.

“There is no possible way for this baby girl to have survived the automobile accident that killed its mother, much less cling to life for 23 hours without food and oxygen from her blood supply.

“But as God is my witness the baby did survive – and there’s not a doctor in the world who can explain it.”

The mind-numbing drama reportedly began when the pretty mother-to-be was rushed to a hospital after she lost control of her car and slammed into a tree.

An account of the incident that appeared in a major medical newsletter noted that the woman was 7 1/2 months pregnant at the time of the accident. And the emergency room physician who pronounced the woman and her baby dead was quoted as saying that every attempt to revive the mother and her unborn child – which was still in the womb – failed.

The mangled body was reportedly placed in a morgue cooler for 17 hours before it was taken to a funeral home to be prepared for burial. The newsletter went on to say the nude corpse was laid out in a coffin and covered with a simple burial shroud 20 hours after the accident.

Three hours later cemetary workers were lowering the coffin into a grave when they heard the cries of a newborn baby. An ambulance was called to rush the baby to a hospital.

And even though the little girl was 1 1/2 months premature, hungry and dehydrated, she gained strength while spending four weeks in an incubator and was released from the hospital in May.

The newsletter kept the names of the woman, doctor and funeral home workers secret to preserve her family’s privacy. It did say that the infant is now living with her father and should lead a normal life in spite of her incredibly rocky start.

“Things happen that defy explanation and this would certainly seem to be one of them,” said the doctor. “That baby was dead and now it is alive.

“It’s living proof that miracles really do happen.”