Frozen Baby Revived: Child Wrongly Pronounced Dead due to Hypothermia

This ice-cold tale has a heart-warming ending...quite literally. A baby girl who was wrongly pronounced dead after being born outside in the freezing temperatures in Toronto was saved by two police officers.

The child's mother had attempted to walk to a hospital in the frigid weather at around zero Fahrenheit, but unfortunately, did not quite make it to the hospital, and ended up giving birth on the sidewalk, according to the Toronto Star. 

After several attempts to revive the newborn, according to reports, she was declared dead and covered with a sheet. However, two police officers fortunately waited with the body for the coroner to arrive. After almost two hours, one of them saw movement under the sheet.

The officer felt for a plus and soon after, alerted medical staff, who confirmed that the baby was alive. She is now safely at home with her 20-year-old mother and both are in stable condition, according to USA Today.

Doctors believe that the frigid temperatures could have slowed the newborn's heart close to stopping, while preserving brain function.

"Hypothermia can mimic death," an expert tells the Globe and Mail, which notes that it is "a critical tenet of emergency medicine that you're not dead until you're warm and dead."

The hospital says it is reviewing "all aspects of care" involved in the incident, including the "extensive resuscitation efforts" when the baby first arrived there.

Statistics show that fatalities due to Hypothermia are often associated with sociological problems and old age, alcohol and drug intoxification being one of the more significant factors.