"When I look at pictures of me in the coma, it seems unreal, and when I hear that my toe saved me, it's amazing," law student Sam Hemming said.
This 22-year-old, once in a coma, is now being called a "walking miracle" after wiggling her toe only moments before family members prepared to take her off life support.
Read: Teen Says She Remembers Being in a Coma: 'I Would Hear Conversations Around Me'
"I can't remember the crash at all," U.K. resident Sam Hemming said. "When I look at pictures of me in the coma, it seems unreal, and when I hear that my toe saved me, it's amazing."
Hemming was in the passenger seat of her boyfriend's car in July when it crashed, and flipped over. She had just recently graduated from Bangor University in Wales with a law degree.
"Her head smashed through the window and hit the central reservation and took her left ear off and she was knocked out," her mom, Carol, told SWNS.
Her boyfriend, Tom Curtis, suffered minor injuries, but Hemming's family was informed that she was brain dead with no hope of recovery.
Doctors deemed one side of her brain "dead" and the other side, left undamaged, is not a part of the brain that is normally used.
After 19 days of being unresponsive in a coma, "the doctors told us it was time to say goodbye," her mom, 44, said. "We gathered in her room and said our farewells."
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Suddenly, doctors noticed Hemming's big toe wiggle.
According to SWNS, she had not been responding to other tests that days, but when a medic accidently touched her right foot with an ice-cold wipe, her body reacted.
"It was amazing," Carol said. "She had literally come back from the dead."
Doctors put her back on life support and within the next few days, Hemming was breathing on her own. Within eight weeks, Hemming was able to return to her home in Hereford, where her parents would continue her care.
Within months, she taught herself to speak and walk again.
"Why her condition is different to other people is that the part of her brain, which most people don't use, hers has developed into speech and movement," Carol said. "Doctors are totally in shock."
Read: Man Miraculously Wakes Up From 48 Day Coma and Immediately Says, 'I Want Taco Bell'
Hemming now receives daily physiotherapy and treatment for PTSD.
In addition, doctors are continuing to help her develop brain function, but according to SWNS, she's willing to put in all the hard work toward one goal.
"Before the accident I wanted to be a solicitor," Hemming said. "That ambition hasn’t changed. I still want a career in the law.”
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