Two-year-old Oluchi Nwaubani wasn’t breathing when she was pulled from a swimming pool earlier this year, her tiny heart barely beating after being in the water for 18 long minutes.

Doctors said if the tot didn’t breath for herself within hours they would consider switching off her vital life support machine.

Days later, after her parents had begged hospital staff to keep her on life support, she suddenly took a breath.

And so began her remarkable recovery, defying gloomy medical diagnoses at every turn and earning her the label of a ‘miracle’ baby.

Oluchi accidentally fell into a friend’s swimming pool in Keston on September 1. She was rescued from the water but paramedics couldn’t start her breathing and the infant was rushed by helicopter to the Royal London hospital in Whitechapel.

Her 40-year-old father, Junior Nwaubani, says doctors gave her a two per cent chance of living and she was put on a life support machine.

He said: “For days we were thinking is she going to live or is she going to die.

“Doctors were telling us she was never going to pull through.

“They said that if she had not started breathing again in six hours she would probably not survive.

“Six hours went by and when the doctors discussed turning off the machine we asked them to hold on.”

Mr Nwaubani, who has spent the last three months in and out of hospital with his wife Tayo added: “Three days later my daughter suddenly started breathing again.”

Brain scans then revealed Oluchi had received brain damage after being starved of oxygen in the accident.

Mr Nwaubani explained: “The doctors said she would never pass urine again because her kidney failed. But she is passing urine normally now.

“They said she would not be able to talk anymore, she would not walk again - she would be a vegetable.

“But she is walking, she is eating normally and she is able to say what she wants.”

The prison worker says that his daughter has defied medical research and as her story spread she attracted nurses and doctors to her bedside on a daily basis.

“The doctors said that the amount of time she spent in the water meant she would never recover but when I asked her to say ‘hello’ to the doctor she tried to speak. And then I asked her to wave goodbye and she moved her hand.

“Her doctor said he couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed. Staff were calling her a miracle baby.”

Oluchi, the second youngest in a clutch of four sisters, returned home to Petts Wood last week after spending almost three months in various hospitals including Great Ormond Street.

The toddler celebrated her third birthday while she was staying at the Princess Royal University Hospital in Farnborough last month.

And apart from being unsteady on her feet, she has made a miraculous recovery.

Mr Nwaubani said: “She seems to have defied doctors at every stage.

“It was hard to explain to her sisters that she was alive because they had seen her die at the pool.

“It has been a difficult time for us but the support we received from friends and family has helped us make it through.”