In November, Zach Dunlap, a 21-year-old man from Texas, was seriously injured in a quad biking accident when he flew off the bike, landing head-first on the hard asphalt street below. He lay in a hospital bed for days as friends and family members swarmed around his bed, hoping for any sign of life.

But on November 19th, Dunlap's doctor declared that the young man was brain dead.

"The doctor took us in and showed us the image on the computer. And he told us the dark areas will be the areas where there's no blood flow to the brain," Dunlap's mother, Pam, told MSNBC.

"And that was the whole brain. That was the whole thing. It was just black," said his father, Doug.

For medical purposes, Dunlap was legally dead. The only reasonable option was to remove his breathing tube and let him slip away. But first, the Dunlaps had a special request: They wanted the hospital to harvest their son's organs to save the lives of patients in need.

"We wanted to make sure that some lucky person got to live on through Zack's heart," said Doug Dunlap.

As Dunlap's friends and family gathered around his lifeless body to say their goodbyes before a medical team removed his organs, something unexpected happened: When Dunlap's cousin, Dan Coffin, held his pocketknife up to Dunlap's foot, "he jerked his foot plumb out of my hand," said Coffin.

At first, one of the nurses who witnessed the motion claimed that it was simply a reflex. But when Coffin tried another test, sticking his own fingernail under Dunlap's fingernail, Dunlap jerked his arm away – a purposeful movement, the doctor verified. Dunlap had come back from the dead.

Even so, no one was sure how well Dunlap would recover from his extensive injuries.

"I still didn't think that Zach was going to have a good outcome," said Dr. Leo Mercer, the Director of Trauma Services at Dunlap's hospital, United Regional. "I thought, well, OK, well, he's not brain dead, but he's pretty close to it."

But Dunlap's remarkable recovery shocked everyone: The very next week, he held up two fingers in response to a neurologist's question – proof that he was "still there."

And on December 2nd, his parents received an amazing early Christmas present. Dunlap opened his eyes, looked at them, and murmured, "I love you."

Finally, in January, he returned home with his family to a warm welcome. Four months later, on a recent appearance on The Today Show, Dunlap claimed he felt "pretty good" – not bad at all for a "dead man."