The luckiest woman alive: Critically ill student wiggled toes moments before life support was switched off (Photos)

These dramatic pictures show a student in critical condition before a miraculous recovery.

Law graduate Sam Hemming has been dubbed a ‘walking miracle ’ after she wiggled her toe moments before doctors switched off her life-support machine.

She was left in a coma after suffering severe brain injuries in an horrific motorway crash .

Medics told her family there was nothing they could do to save the 22-year-old and said she had no hope of recovery.

Sam’s parents gathered at her hospital bedside to say farewell after agreeing that her life-support machine could be switched off.

But moments before the apparatus was disconnected, she wiggled her big toe when a medic accidentally brushed it with an ice-cold wipe.

Stunned surgeons carried out a tracheotomy and Sam was able to breathe on her own – and eight weeks later was back home.

Mum Carol, who took a heartbreaking photograph of her daughter as she lay the coma, said: “It was amazing.

“She had literally came back from the dead. If she hadn’t wiggled her toe she wouldn’t be here today.”

Sam, who hopes to become a solicitor, said: “When I look at the pictures of me in the coma it seems unreal.

“And when I hear that my toe saved me, it’s amazing. I’m hugely grateful to all the medical staff who have helped me.”

Sam’s boyfriend Tom Curtis, 21, was driving her home to Credenhill, Hereford, when they crashed on the M6 in July.

The car flipped over and careered into the metal central reservation barrier, leaving her seriously injured.

Sam was airlifted to University Hospital Coventry , where surgeons battled to save her life.

She underwent three operations, as well as having metal plates inserted into her arm which suffered three fractures.

Sam also broke four bones in her neck and her family were warned to prepare themselves for the worse.

(Sam Hemming with her mum Carol)

The talented athlete was put into a chemically-induced coma but showed no improvement after 19 days.

Doctors said she was brain dead and advised Carol, 44, and her dad Jason, 43, to switch off her life-support machine.

They then decided to switch it off for a fourth and final time and allow the Bangor University graduate to die.

It was then that a medic accidentally brushed the wipe on her right foot, making her big toe wiggle – a sign of brain activity.

Sam now undergoes daily physiotherapy while doctors work to help her brain develop more functions.

-The Mirror