Harrowing survival story of 36-weeks-pregnant mom who leapt from 20-foot-high window to escape fire: ‘Just fight or flight’

A Michigan mom is celebrating the birthday of her “miracle baby” Brynlee after both of them nearly died in a horrifying fire while she was heavily pregnant — surviving only after the expectant mom dived from a second-story window .

Last May, Rachel Standfest, 26, was 36 weeks pregnant and living with her husband Travis in an apartment in her parents’ barn in Grand Rapids while the couple finished work on their own home.

Rachel was less than four weeks from her due date when she woke one night to smoke billowing through the barn.

“Something made me get up and go check the stairs, and all I could see was smoke,” Rachel told People magazine.

“I ran back and I shook Travis up and I called my mom.”

“The last thing I remember is Travis punching out the screen window, and I could see my mom in the driveway yelling, ‘Get out now.’

Trump leads Biden in five swing states, but race remains tight: poll

“That’s last thing I remember for probably two weeks.”

Travis had helped lower his wife out the window and let her go — which he estimated was a 20 foot-drop — leaving her with a skull fracture and a brain bleed when she hit the ground and lost consciousness.

“It was just fight or flight. In the moment, I know I was scared,” Rachel said.

“I know both of us had a moment of, ‘Oh my word, is this it? Are we going to die?’ But I wasn’t scared to jump out because I knew that’s what we had to do to survive.”

With nobody to help lower him down, Travis had to make an escape through the flames and charged downstairs to get away.

White House makes nine brutal corrections to Biden’s NAACP Detroit speech

“There were seven fire departments. They said it was the hottest fire that they had been to in 27 years, and it burned really quickly. It burned about six feet of space every second once it was fully up and going,” Travis told People.

The barn’s open door helped fuel the flame — but the door also allowed Travis to also make his desperate escape.

“If that door wasn’t open, I probably wouldn’t get out,” he said.

The couple was rushed to the hospital, where doctors decided to perform an emergency caesarian on Rachel.

“They had to cut through a third-degree burn to do that, and they had never done that before,” Rachel said.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR MORNING REPORT NEWSLETTER

“It was like, ‘Nope, we got to make a decision. We’ve got a lot of smart people in the room. What are we going to do?’ And boom, 15, 20 seconds, and Brynlee was out.”

Their daughter was born miraculously healthy, and suffered no ill effects from the fire or her mother’s horrific fall.

Her name, Brynlee, had been picked weeks before the fire — but it wasn’t until afterwards they learned that it was an Old English word meaning “burned clearing.”

“That’s really where the faith portion of it started for I think our families and for me, but it’s like hearing that, it’s not just coincidence,” Travis said.

Rachel remained in the hospital for nearly a month, while Travis was released after about a week.

After a year of help from friends and family, Rachel and Travis say they’re “so blessed because we’re alive and we’re here.”

And the blessings are still rolling in for them — last month they announced they’re expecting another baby.

For top headlines, breaking news and more, visit nypost.com.