Watch: A “dead” woman breathing in a coffin is taken to hospital
An Ecuadorean woman has died days after mourners at her funeral were shocked to find her alive in her coffin.
A doctor announced the death of Bella Montoya, 76, in a hospital in Papahoyo City last week.
But when the mourners who attended her day heard knocking on her coffin, she was immediately taken to the same hospital for treatment.
After seven days in intensive care, Ecuador’s Ministry of Health confirmed that she had died of a stroke on Friday.
The ministry statement added that she remained under “permanent monitoring” while in hospital.
Her son, Gilbert Barbera, told a local newspaper, “This time my mom really died. My life will never be the same again.”
After her death on June 16, Ms. Montoya was returned to the same funeral home before being buried in a public cemetery, local media reported.
Local media reported that Ms. Montaya was suffering from a condition called catalepsia – where a person experiences epileptic seizures, loss of consciousness and the body becomes rigid.
The Ecuadorian Ministry of Health set up an expert committee to review her case.
Ms. Montoya was placed in a coffin and taken to the funeral parlor in Papahoyo, southwest of the capital, Quito, after her death was announced on June 9.
But after nearly five hours inside, the woman gasped for air after her relatives opened the coffin to change her clothes for the funeral.
Minutes later, firefighters pulled her over for trying and took her to the same hospital.
Bella Montoya isn’t the only person “living” after his death was officially announced.
In February, an 82-year-old woman was found breathing while lying in a funeral home in upstate New York. She had been pronounced dead three hours earlier in a nursing home.
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