Israeli Woman Declared Dead at 17 Gives Birth 17 Years Later

In what is being called a medical miracle, an Israeli woman, Shahar Davidov, who was declared dead at 17 years old following a severe car crash in 2009, recently gave birth to her third child. The birth took place at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, with her elder sister, Zoar, who is now an obstetrician, attending the delivery.

Seventeen years ago, Davidov was a passenger in a car driven by her boyfriend when it crashed into a tree. A doctor on the scene pronounced her dead. However, paramedic Muavia Kbaha, who was en route to another call, stopped and performed resuscitation for 40 minutes until her pulse returned. She was then rushed to Beilinson Hospital, where her heart had to be restarted again in the ambulance.

News reports at the time mistakenly announced her death, and her family, who were traveling to the hospital, were spared hearing the initial false reports by not turning on the car radio. Davidov spent two weeks on a ventilator in a medically induced coma and underwent a lengthy rehabilitation. Despite her injuries, she successfully completed her matriculation exams and served in the army.

Now, 17 years later, Davidov is married with two children. Her sister Zoar, who witnessed the ambulance carrying her sister away from the accident scene, went on to complete medical school and specialize in obstetrics at the very same hospital where Shahar was saved. Zoar stated that she waited for her sister to finish her medical training before getting pregnant again, and they had planned for Zoar to deliver this baby.

Davidov described the recent birth as smooth and a completely different experience from her previous pregnancies, crediting her sister's care for a quick recovery. She noted that her first child had spent a week in the neonatal intensive care unit where Zoar was working at the time.