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His wife had been unresponsive for 12 days. As he said his final goodbye, she answered him.

They had turned off her life support when she whispered the four words that saved her own life.

miracle stories, medical stories, coma, life support, viral stories, inspirational stories, family, love

A couple holding hands in a hospital room

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By Adam Albright Hanna,
Adam Albright Hanna
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GOOD Staff
GOOD Staff
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Sep 02, 2025

In October 2015, after 12 days in a deep coma with no signs of brain activity, Lyndee Brown Pellettiere-Swapp's family made the devastating decision to take her off life support. Doctors at the Arizona hospital had given them no hope, and her organs were beginning to fail, per The Mirror.

As family members gathered to say their last goodbyes, her husband, Steve, stayed by her side, making one final plea. "The entire time, my husband kept whispering in my ear, 'I need you to fight,’” Lyndee later recalled.

As medics stood by to prepare her for organ donation, the machines were turned off. But in the silence that followed, Steve heard a faint whisper. It was Lyndee, summoning every ounce of her strength to say four powerful words: “I'm a fighter.”


miracle stories, medical stories, coma, life support, viral stories, inspirational stories, family, love ECG monitor in a hospitalCanva

Her husband immediately fetched the doctors. “She is doing everything you said she wouldn't do,” he told them. Against all odds, Lyndee began a miraculous recovery, and she was discharged from the hospital the following month.


miracle stories, medical stories, coma, life support, viral stories, inspirational stories, family, love A patient is comforted in the hospotalCanva

What no one knew was that Lyndee had been conscious for much of the ordeal, a prisoner in her own body. “I remember a doctor shining a light in my eyes and telling my family that there was no response,” she said. She could hear her family's encouragement but was unable to move or speak until that final, critical moment, per Newzmagazine.com.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

A Fighter's Legacy

Lyndee’s miraculous recovery gave her two more years with her loved ones. Though she continued to face health complications from the coma, she lived fully until she passed away peacefully in her sleep in October 2017.

Her daughter shared in a tribute that she will forever be remembered for what she proved in that hospital room: she was, and always would be, a fighter.

This article originally appeared earlier this year.

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