(CNN/KETV) — A purple heart veteran from Nebraska who suffered his second traumatic brain injury is making a miraculous recovery just in time for Christmas.

Christmas eve will mark three months since Tony Belt fell 18 feet from a scissor lift in a work accident, suffering a traumatic brain injury. Belt has been in a coma for 10 weeks.

Belt wasn’t supposed to sit up on his own. He wasn’t supposed to sit with his son. He wasn’t supposed to be awake — or even alive.

“The doctors told me he probably wasn’t going to make it to the weekend,” said his wife, Kyli Belt.

He survived that weekend, but doctors still said he wouldn’t wake up. But, Belt is a fighter. His injury to the head isn’t even his first. Eight years in the army, deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, he was injured in a tank explosion. In 2006, he was shot in the head, ending his military career and giving him the purple heart.

Therapists at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital put the soldier to work with help from his three sons, ages four, three, and seven months old.

“They talk to him and play with him the baby even lays in bed with him,” said Kyli.

Now that he’s improving, Kyli says their family needs some holiday cheer. Friends started sending Christmas cards.

The Belt’s four-year-old son Eli didn’t listen to the doctors either. He declared his dad would talk by Christmas Eve. And right now, tony communicates by giving a thumbs up or thumbs down.

“Maybe he was right. Maybe he will be the Christmas miracle that he’s been telling me (thumbs up), yeah that’s going to be your Christmas miracle is that what you’re waiting for,” said his wife.

The belt family has a GoFundMe account to help with medical costs.