A four-month-old baby miraculously survived underwater for FOUR minutes after her mother's car crashed into a ditch.
Beckie Thompson, 21, was driving daughter Imogen to nursery when she lost control of her Peugeot 206 while swerving to avoid another vehicle in Spalding, Lincolnshire.
The car rolled over into the ditch and landed on its roof. The mum was flung back on to the rear seats of the car. But she managed to climb out and then began desperately hunting for her baby.
Beckie was then horrified to see her baby's toes poking out of the water. She pulled Imogen, still strapped into her car seat, free and placed her on the bank.
By that stage the little girl had been underwater for four minutes and her lips and fingers were blue and she wasn't breathing.
Beckie screamed for help and a passing motorist stopped to performed CPR for three minutes before Imogen began to cry.
Beckie said: "It's a miracle she's alive. For all intents and purposes she was dead for seven minutes, four in the car, then three at the roadside.
"It was like an out-of-body experience, like I was watching a soap or something. She had blue lips and blue fingertips. I really didn't think she was going to wake up.
"That poor man was shaking and crying as he tried to resuscitate her. He kept going until she started to make a noise. He kept on going until she was fully screaming.
"I can't thank him enough - I owe my little girls' life to him.'
"The doctors don't really know how she managed to survive, let alone escape without any brain damage.
"Maybe it's because she is a bit of a chubbier baby, but it is still a total mystery."
Imogen was airlifted to the Queen's Medical Centre, in Nottingham, after the accident on September 17. She had water pumped from her lungs and stomach and had to stay in hospital for four nights.
She is now back home with her mother and sister Alexis, five.
Beckie was treated for cuts to her face and a minor puncture injury where her car keys pierced her elbow.
She doesn't know the identity of the stranger who saved her baby's life but is desperate to meet him so she can thank him.