"Miracle" is a word seldom used in medicine, but the doctors who witnessed the recovery of 14-year-old John Smith explained the incident as nothing short of miraculous. The Missourian boy sank to the bottom of a frozen lake, was deprived of oxygen for a quarter of an hour, had no pulse, and yet still managed to recover with nothing more than a few scratches. This truly remarkable story is a prime example of how, in some cases, being frozen can actually help you cheat death.

While out playing with his friends on frozen Lake Sainte Louise in Missouri, the ice broke beneath John’s feet. The teen remained trapped under a sheet of ice in 40-degree Fahrenheit water for 15 minutes. Eventually paramedics arrived to pull him onto dry land, the Daily Mail reported, but at this point he was unresponsive and did not have a pulse. Once John was admitted to St. Joseph Hospital West, doctors administered CPR, but after multiple attempts, the boy’s mother, Joyce Smith, was called to learn it didn’t seem as though her son would pull through.

It was then that Joyce began to pray. “I don't remember what all I said. But I remember, "Holy God, please send your Holy Spirit to save my son. I want my son. Please save him," Joyce told Fox News. Moments later, in what Dr. Jeremy Garrett, who also worked on John, described as “a bonifide miracle,” the teenager opened his eyes.

As reported by Newsweek, extremely cold temperatures can either cause death or prevent it, depending on the timing. While a person can only survive up to three minutes underwater in normal temperatures, in frozen water a person can survive being deprived of oxygen for upward of 40 minutes. The cold puts the body into suspended animation, prolonging death.

The boy’s family believes their prayers were the reason for his recovery, and although science cannot prove the existence of miracles, it can show that merely believing in them can give people the strength to pull through otherwise dire situations.