Caters
A premature baby boy whose lifeless body was about to be blessed by a chaplain came back to life – and has just celebrated his first birthday.
Tiny Shayne Welsh was dead for half an hour while doctors battled to save his life. They told his distraught parents that there was no hope for the 1lb 14oz baby after he was born three and a half months early in September 2011.
Devastated mum and dad Kerry, 39, and Simon, 44, had said their last goodbyes to little Shayne and were breaking the news to relatives outside the ward as nurses prepared his body for a chaplain to bless him.
But as more than 30 minutes passed, and hospital chaplain Rev. Christine Silvester arrived, Shayne came back from the dead and his heart started beating once more.
Nurses rushed to tell his parents – and the relief made Kerry collapse as she realised her little boy was alive.
The couple, from Walsall, West Midlands, had been trying for a child for 18 years and suffered six miscarriages.
Almost exactly a year on from that day Shayne is celebrating his first birthday a happy and healthy little boy.
Kerry said to this day doctors have not been able to explain how their miracle son survived and could only say it was an 'event'.
She said: "Doctors still can't tell us how Shayne survived, they have said it could have been him being moved around or when I gave him a cuddle, but to this day they call it an 'event' as no one really knows.
Shayne has developed normally, the bleeds on his brain have repaired and even at just one year old he's trying to walk, the consultant has told she is not worried about him.
"It was a rollercoaster of emotions that day, when Simon told me Shayne was alive I just collapsed against the wall.
"We had been trying for a baby for 18 years, I miscarried a boy in 1996 and we lost twins in 2006, I could never carry beyond around 12 weeks as I have polycystic ovaries."
Dad Simon, said: "I'm known as a practical joker but this was no laughing matter. As I held Shayne in my arms his body was lifeless, his little jaw kept dropping open and I kept shaving to shut it for him.
"Shayne wasn't out of the woods after he came back so we got Rev. Christine to baptise him the next day. Even after that the doctors told us it was 50 50 as he got infections his little body had to fight off, but fight them off he did."
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