'Dead' Man Brought Back to Life—After 45 Minutes

It's apparently the week of astoundingbrought-back-to-life stories. The latest person to return from the dead is Anthony Yahle, whose case is being hailed a miracle by doctors. The Ohio man was rushed to the hospital on Aug. 5 after his wife realized he was breathing oddly in his sleep and found herself unable to wake him. Since his arteries were clear, doctors were optimistic—until his heart stopped beating. They spent 45 minutes trying to revive the 37-year-old before declaring him dead. But his 17-year-old son wasn't about to give up. "I pointed at him and said, 'Dad, you're not going to die today,'" reports WFAA.

"Suddenly that trickle of a thing came back," says cardiologist Raja Nazir. He tells ABC News that what he observed wasn't a normal heartbeat, but a small electrical blip not much more often than twice a minute. "I though we'd better make another effort to revive him," he says—and a regular heartbeat was eventually restored. Yahle fully awoke five days later, and though doctors thought he'd need a heart transplant, he appears in fine health. "He doesn't have one broken rib," his wife says. "He's not sore. These are things that just clinically don't happen." Though doctors now point to a possible viral infection, Yahle (who has no memory of the event nor of any sort of "afterlife" moment) tells the Dayton Daily News, "Nobody really has an explanation for it." He adds: "A miracle happened. If it strengthened everyone's faith, I'll take the lumps for it." (Click for the story of an Australian woman who was also brought back from the dead earlier this month.)