The Danish Miracle: How Seven Students Returned from the Brink of Death

Recently, a BBC production team filmed a one-of-a-kind documentary that tells the incredible story of seven Danish students who faced death under tragic circumstances and returned to life against all odds.

The incident occurred in 2011 when all seven students were on a school outing. They fell off their boat into the icy waters of a frozen lake, finding themselves in a state of clinical death. The documentary, titled "Life After Death: How Seven Kids Came Back from the Dead," follows their miraculous return to the place where their lives were restored.

A total of 12 students went on the trip to the frozen lake. When students Katherine and Kasper returned to the site, they broke down in tears. "I remember it as if it happened now," recalls 21-year-old Katherine. "The water was so cold; it was covered in ice. It was a nightmare."

21-year-old Kasper added that the day was fraught with bad weather and strong winds that capsized their boat in the middle of the lake. "There were a lot of screams; that's what I remember most. The nightmare began when we surfaced from the water, everyone was yelling, and you saw the panic. The teacher told us to swim to shore or we would all die."

"It's Hard to See Yourself Again – Dead"

The water temperature was only 35 degrees Fahrenheit, and despite being just a few hundred meters from shore, Kasper couldn't make it. "A friend approached me and tried to help because I couldn't swim, but because of the water temperature, I was probably already in a state of clinical death."

Meanwhile, Katherine and a few friends who were good swimmers managed to reach the shore and call for help, despite suffering from severe hypothermia themselves. "I remember it was really hard to walk. I had no strength in my legs and kept falling. That was the moment I thought, 'Okay, I'm going to die'." She had no idea that one of her friends, in slightly better condition, had managed to run quickly to the nearby road to call for assistance.

Seven out of the 12 students on the lake trip were taken to the hospital with various levels of hypothermia and experienced clinical death for up to six hours but were eventually saved. "My father took some pictures of me while I was in a coma in the hospital bed, and when I saw them, I couldn't believe it. It’s hard to see yourself again, dead," Kasper shared.

A doctor at the hospital, who was part of the team that treated the seven young people and brought them back to life, said as time passed, the fear grew that they might not recover. "Our focus was on their brains, and no one was sure if the children's brains were affected. We didn't see anything unusual in the scans we did, and we were quite optimistic."

Today, they all appreciate life in a completely different way. "I'm really glad I'm alive. This incident taught me to value life and to know what’s worth fighting for," she concludes.