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'Dead' woman found breathing in coffin 'Dead' woman found breathing in coffin
(about 2 hours later)
File photo of a coffinFile photo of a coffin
Mourners at the wake of an elderly Ecuadorean woman were startled to discover she was still alive.Mourners at the wake of an elderly Ecuadorean woman were startled to discover she was still alive.
Bella Montoya, 76, was declared dead last week following a suspected stroke. A hospital doctor in the city of Babahoyo declared Bella Montoya, 76, dead following a suspected stroke.
Five hours into her wake on Friday, relatives preparing to change her clothes ahead of the burial found her gasping for air. She was placed in a coffin and taken to a funeral parlour, where relatives held a vigil before her planned burial.
Ms Montoya is now back in hospital in intensive care, and Ecuador's health ministry has set up a committee to investigate the incident. When, after almost five hours, they opened the coffin to change her clothes ahead of the funeral, the woman gasped for air.
In a statement, the ministry said that the woman went into cardiorespiratory arrest - a loss of breathing and heart function - and did not respond to resuscitation attempts. "My mum started to move her left hand, to open her eyes, her mouth; she struggled to breathe," her son Gilbert Balberán described the moment he realised his mother was still alive.
The doctor on duty confirmed her death. Video taken by one of the mourners shows her lying in an open casket struggling to breathe, while another complains that an ambulance they called has not yet arrived.
Her son, Gilber Rodolfo Balberán Montoya, was quoted by local media as saying that his mother had been "admitted around 09:00, and at noon a doctor told me [she] died". Minutes later, firefighters arrive and lift Bella Montoya from the coffin onto a stretcher and take her back to the same hospital where she had been declared dead.
Ms Montoya was then placed in a coffin for several hours until she was seen by family members trying to breathe. Her son told Ecuadorean media that she was in intensive care, but was responsive.
A video posted on social media showed her lying in an open casket and breathing heavily while several people crowded around her. "My mum is on oxygen, her heart is stable. The doctor pinched her hand and she reacted, they tell me that's good because it means she is reacting little by little," newspaper El Universo quoted him as saying.
Paramedics are then seen arriving and observing Ms Montoya before moving her on to a stretcher and into an ambulance. Ecuador's health ministry has set up a committee to investigate the incident.
Now she is in intensive care in the same hospital where doctors declared her death. Mr Balberán said he had taken his mother to hospital at about 09:00 "and at noon a doctor told me [she] died".
AFP news agency quoted Mr Balberán as saying: "Little by little, I am grasping what has happened. Now I only pray for my mother's health to improve. I want her alive and by my side." He said he had even been issued with a death certificate, which stated that she had died of cardiopulmonary arrest after suffering a stroke.
Bella Montoya is not the only person to "come alive" after being officially declared dead.
In February, an 82-year-old woman was found to be breathing while lying in a funeral home in New York state. She had been pronounced dead three hours earlier at a nursing home.
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