An Oregon family says it was prayer what brought their toddler back to life. Matty Cunningham’s lifeless body was found floating in a neighbor’s pond last week after he had wandered away from his family in Baker City.

Faithwire.com reports that the family members of 22-month old Matty Cunningham immediately began performing CPR when they found his body floating in a pond, but the prospects for his survival were low. The boy’s father is quoted in a local news station.

“He was dead,” the boy’s father, Matthew, told local station KBOI in Boise, Idaho. “He was blue and dead.”

Family members began to pray while they waited for police to arrive and as Matty’s mother, Elsa, continued to do chest compressions on the toddler.

“When I’m doing compressions, my children were on their knees praying and begging god for a miracle,” Elsa told KBOI.

The local report on KBOI singles out that they prayed and prayed and prayed some more. When Matty arrived at the emergency room, doctors said his vital signs were faint and his blood work wasn’t looking good.

“They painted the story of a dead child,” Elsa told KBOI.

Matty was eventually transported to a hospital in downtown Boise, Idaho, where doctors performed an MRI to see how much brain damage he had suffered. His parents said they braced for the worst. But the MRI showed a normal brain scan.

“Through the grace of God, they said his MRI was normal,” Matthew told KBOI. “There wasn’t a better word at that point a parent could want to hear.”

Within hours, Matty started coming back to life. By Sunday, the toddler was acting like himself again.

Faithwire.com copy / TRUNEWS summary.