A young mother and her 18-month-old daughter were traveling on a Utah road over the weekend when tragedy struck. Their car crashed and plunged into an icy river. When a 911 caller spotted the overturned car partially submerged in the water, he was sure no one had survived.

“Do they appear to be moving at all?” the dispatcher asked.

“No, they don’t.”

The baby’s mother, Lynn Jennifer Groesbeck, died in the crash. She was 25 years old. When rescuers arrived, they found the toddler hanging upside down in her mother’s car. The odds seemed almost impossibly stacked against baby Lily, but she survived.

ABC7 WJLA reported on the accident.

“It’s amazing. Children are very resilient, and I think sometimes we don’t realize how much they actually can withstand,” said Dr. Barbara Walsh, with the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

Lynn Jennifer Groesbeck with her baby and husband

Dr. Oscar Guillamondegui, trauma director at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee added that “Although the cold could have led Lily’s organs to fail from hypothermia, it also likely put her body into a state of suspended animation, Guillamondegui said, likening it to hibernation. The cold slows the body down, enabling it to withstand the trauma, including potential hypothermia.”

Whatever the reason, Lily’s survival is truly a miracle.