A former beauty queen 'came back to life' after being declared dead from COVID-19, and doctors called it 'a miracle'

• Barbara Guthrie Lay, who was the 1958 Miss Virginia, was declared dead from COVID-19 on December 22, reported the Martinsville Bulletin.
• After doctors had given up hopes of resuscitating Lay, they detected a faint pulse coming from the 82-year-old on December 24.
• Much to the shock of doctors and family members, the former pageant queen came back to life in what people are calling a Christmas "miracle."
• "She has this incredible will to live and always says she plans to live until she's 101," Howard Huff, a friend of Lay's, told the Martinsville Bulletin.

Barbara Guthrie Lay's family was devastated when the 82-year-old beauty pageant queen was declared dead from COVID-19 on December 22, reported WSET.

Lay, who was crowned Miss Virginia in 1958 and was declared grand marshal of the Martinsville Christmas parade on December 4, likely contracted COVID-19 from her anti-mask-wearing neighbors in Atlanta, who spoke to her after she returned on December 5, according to the Martinsville Bulletin.

She was admitted to the Wellstar North Fulton Hospital two days after she started experiencing trouble breathing on December 20. Lay was put on a ventilator.

After many resuscitation attempts, doctors said another one would destroy her heart and induced a medical coma. Doctors told her son Thom Kelley, who is also a physician, his mother was dead on December 22.

But two days later, doctors detected a faint pulse coming from Lay's body, which Kelley declared a Christmas Eve "miracle."

"I was overjoyed and tearful again," Tony Lay, Lay's husband of six years, told WSET. "I went from being miserable and brokenhearted to overjoyed."

According to the Martinsville Bulletin, Lay's heart function rapidly started improving and jumped from 10% to 25% on the same day. By December 27, Lay was asking for her husband and son.

"She has this incredible will to live and always says she plans to live until she's 101," Howard Huff, a friend of Lay's, told the Martinsville Bulletin.