Struggling to cope with a marriage in difficulty, Jack and Alison Heywood suffer every parent's worst nightmare. Their two children are involved in a horrific road accident which leaves seven-year-old Frankie in a coma and her elder brother, Ben, severely traumatised.
After three increasingly desperate months, a slender lifeline finally emerges. They Heywoods hear of an experimental clinic in America run by brilliant neurologist Elizabeth Chase. But her work is high pressure and high risk, pushing at the very limits of medical practice. As the Heywoods arrive at the clinic they find it besieged - by the law, the media and the medical establishment. Against this volatile backdrop, and with time running out for both Frankie and Ben, it soon becomes apparent that only a supreme act of sacrifice can make a miracle happen . . .
