Back From The Dead -- Mother Wakes From Coma After Hearing Newborn Daughter's Cries

A baby's cries can wake any parent from their sleep, but Shelly Cawley's newborn daughter's crying managed to rouse her from a coma. Last year when Shelly, from Concord, North Carolina, gave birth she fell into a coma after a C-section at the HealthCare System NorthEast hospital.

It had been a few hours since the operation, with all attempts to wake her proving unsuccessful. It was then that a nurse at the hospital, Ashley Manus, suggested bringing the newborn daughter to the mother.

"I was hoping somewhere deep down, Shelly was still there and could feel her baby, hear her baby and her mother's instincts would come out and she would realize, 'This is where I need to be.' " Manus told People.

When the baby cried they saw Shelly's vitals spike on the monitor, so they knew it was having an affect. "We knew that somewhere in there she was hearing her baby. Rylan saved her mom's life." notes Manus.

It then took another week for Shelly to completely come out of the coma and have the strength to hold her baby. But she suffered no lasting health effects.

"It was the crying that got Shelly going again, got her fighting again." said her husband Jeremy, "I got my wife back."--What a totally heartfelt and amazing happy ending.

Baby Rylan has just celebrated her 1st birthday. "Last year I fought for my life and this year I have a wonderful 1-year-old daughter," says mom Shelly. "When she's grown up, I'll tell her that she saved my life."

Shelly says of her experience of waking up from the coma, "I stared at Rylan's face and thought to myself that she was the most beautiful baby in the world."

Here's the full news report below on the whole sequence of events from this wonderful story.