(CNN) -- She was a tiny thing: 1 pound 12 ounces, cold as a frozen bottle and left for dead. But she would survive.
One-week-old Luz Milagros
Veron is Argentina's miracle baby. Pronounced dead after her premature
birth, the baby withstood more than 10 hours in a morgue refrigerator
before being found alive.
"Today is the eighth day of my daughter's resurrection," the girl's father, Fabian Veron, told CNN Wednesday.
Doctors at the Perrando
Hospital in northeast Argentina can't explain it, and every, doctor,
nurse and morgue worker who dealt with the baby has been suspended as an
investigation gets underway, officials said.
Luz Milagros remains in stable condition but she's in intensive care, a health official said.
Analia Boutet, the baby's
mother, had given birth four times previously, and had recently
suffered a miscarriage. This baby was born on April 3, three months
early, and had no vital signs, hospital director Dr. Jose Luis Meirino
told CNN.
The gynecologist on hand
didn't find any signs of life, so he passed the baby to a neonatal
doctor who also didn't find vital signs, Meirino said.
The doctors observed the baby for a while, and only then, pronounced her dead.
The hospital followed protocol, Meirino said.
Two morgue workers then put her body inside a little wooden coffin and placed it in the freezer.
"Up to that point, there were still no vital signs," the hospital director said.
That night, Boutet began insisting on seeing her dead daughter's body, Veron said.
She wanted to take a picture with her cell phone of the baby just as she lay, as a memory, the husband said.
It took some cajoling,
but finally, hospital officials allowed the couple to visit the baby in
the hospital morgue around 10 p.m., Veron said. As many as 12 hours had
passed since the baby had been declared dead.
"They put the coffin on
top of a stretcher and we looked for a little crowbar to open it because
it was nailed shut," Veron told a local television station. "It was
nailed shut. I put the crowbar in there and started prying. I took a
breath and took the lid off."
Boutet approached the baby's body, touched her hand, and heard a cry, Veron told CNN.
She jumped back. "It's my imagination, it's my imagination," she repeated.
But the baby was alive, and crying.
Veron's brother-in-law
rushed the baby back to the neonatal ward. He clutched her close to his
chest for warmth. She felt like an ice-cold bottle against his body, the
relative told Veron.
"I can't explain what happened. Only that God has performed a miracle," Veron said.
His daughter was given a fresh, if precarious chance, and along with it, a new name.
She was going to be
named Lucia, but after finding her alive, her parents said she would be
Luz Milagros -- the Spanish words for light and miracles.
In the meantime, an investigation has been launched at the hospital.
"I don't have an
explanation for what happened, but if there is culpability we'll see
what we'll do," Rafael Sabatinelli, deputy secretary of health in the
Chaco region, told CNN.
"The personnel who were
involved have responsibilities, and therefore, will have to be held
accountable for their actions," he said in a statement.
Both Sabatinelli and
Meirino said it was the first time they had witnessed an incident like
this, but that a nearly identical thing happened in Israel in 2008.
In that case, a baby was found alive in a morgue refrigerator after having been declared dead.
Some doctors at the time
said that it was possible that the low temperatures inside the
refrigerator had slowed down the baby's metabolism and helped her
survive. However, that baby later died.
- Via CNN
