The Power of Prayer: How one child was brought back to life following Mass

'I really thought it was the end.'

Four-year-old Gemma Botelho, of Miami Florida, suffered a slight fever as she danced in her school's Christmas play, but only three days later, Gemma was rushed to the emergency room.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Initially, Gemma's flu was controlled with medicine and bedrest, leaving her well enough to appear in her school's Christmas play. She was also feeling well enough to attend school the following two days, but she fell ill again.

Her parents, Alex Botelho and Lejla Szabo, told CNN Gemma's hands and feet were cold to the touch, then she developed a rash. Worried, the couple took her to the emergency room, where Gemma went into cardiac arrest.

"I thought the flu -- you have a cough and cold and you stay home for two days," Szabo said. "It didn't cross my mind it could lead to something this serious."

After Gemma suffered cardiac arrest, her heart stopped beating. Doctors and nurses frantically performed CPR in an attempt to revive the child, but her heart failed to restart.

"We heard beeping, and then no beeping," Szabo said. "She was just flat-lining. We really felt that we had lost her."

Szabo recalled her husband, Botelho, looking at her. "He told me we just had to look back and appreciate those 4 1/2 years we had with her," she recalled.

When Gemma's heart failed to start beating again, a doctor came from her room to inform the worried couple that she would require a life support machine to keep her alive.

While doctors and nurses continued their attempts to revive her, Dr. Robert Hannan connected her to life support. Within twelve minutes of the life support connection, she was breathing and her heart was beating. 

It was later discovered Gemma had caught the flu, which had moved to the tissue surrounding her heart and attacked the muscle.

Hannan believed Gemma might require a heart transplant and, as his facility does not offer heart transplant surgery, he decided to take Gemma to All Children's Hospital Johns Hopkins Medicine, in St. Petersburg.

Botelho and Szabo were forced to take a commercial flight and arrived at the hospital just before Dr. Hannan and Gemma did.

Gemma's heart continued to beat lightly with help from the machines, and doctors prepared to add her to the heart transplant list -though making the list does not guarantee a transplanted organ.

The Sunday before Christmas, Szabo, originally from Hungary, and Botelho, from Brazil, asked friends to say prayers for Gemma at Catholic Masses in their home countries, as well as in Argentina, Italy, Miami and Boston.

That night, doctors predicted Gemma's heart would begin beating again soon. 

Two days later, Gemma's heart was beating hard enough to allow her to be removed from life support machines. Her pediatric heart surgeon, Dr. Jeffrey Jacobs, said, "When an adorable little girl recovers from a near death experience, it reminds all of us why we do what we do."

Though Botelho and Szabo recognize the power of prayer, Jacobs claimed he was unable to explain why Gemma's heart started again.

"Sometimes we don't understand everything that happens in medicine," Jacobs added.

In another miraculous intervention, the couple admitted they had initially considered taking Gemma to her pediatrician, where she would have died as it did not have a pediatric heart program.

In regards to Gemma's recovery, Botelho said, "It's beyond belief. Everyone here at the hospital -- their spirits are lifted. They said they live for moments like this because the odds were 99 percent against her."

Despite the time Gemma was without a heartbeat and oxygen to her brain, both Botelho and Szabo remain grateful for Gemma's recovery and have since advocated for children receiving their flu shots.

Today, Gemma is talking again and is showing signs of an amazing recovery. 

"The way she spoke to us, how she was trying to say something was wrong, she never spoke to us in that tone before," Botelho recalled. "The helplessness in her face; that was meaningful."

Dr. Jacobs remains hopeful, saying, "I think she's going to make a great recovery. A month from now this is going to be a little bump in the road."

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