In a wake for an elderly Ecuadorean woman, mourners were startled to discover she was still alive. Last week, Bella Montoya, 76, died of a suspected stroke.
As relatives prepared to change her clothes ahead of her burial, she gasped for breath five hours into her wake.
Ecuador’s health ministry has set up a committee to investigate the incident, and Ms Montoya is back in intensive care.
According to the ministry, the woman went into cardiorespiratory arrest and did not respond to resuscitation efforts.
Her death was confirmed by the doctor on duty.
According to local media, her son Gilber Rodolfo Balberán Montoya said his mother was “admitted around 9:00, and a doctor told me she died at noon”.
After being placed in a coffin for several hours , family members noticed Ms Montoya struggling to breathe and found alive.
Several people crowded around her as she lay in an open casket breathing heavily in a video posted on social media.
In the next scene, paramedics arrive and observe Ms Montoya before moving her to an ambulance on a stretcher.
In the same hospital where doctors declared her dead, woman
is now in intensive care.
Mr Balberán told AFP: “I’m slowly grasping what has happened. I only pray that my mother’s health will improve. I want her to be with me.
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