College student Sam Schmid awakes from coma after car accident and fully recovers - "Never give up and find the miracle within you..."

One college student went from comatose to tearing up the basketball court in under three years. His secret? Hard work and determination.

In October of 2011, Sam Schmid, a University of Arizona student, was involved in a devastating car accident that left him in a near-fatal coma, ABC News reported. Just when his family began to lose hope and consider organ donation, he began to respond by moving some fingers. Incredibly, he came out of the coma and it looked possible that he could make a full recovery.

"People say I'm a miracle, but I say never give up," Schmid says in the video above by Dignity Health's Barrow Neurological Institute where he underwent rehabilitation. "Find the miracle within you."

Now, two and a half years later, and after countless hours of grueling physical therapy, 23-year-old Schmid has graduated from neuro rehab, and is once again enrolled in college. The determined survivor, who once struggled just to swallow on his own, is shown in the video above playing basketball with his brother.

"It's not so much that I was lucky that I had this remarkable recovery, it's that I worked for this remarkable recovery," Schmid says in the video above. "It just takes hard work, and dedication and perseverance."