Ecuador woman declared ‘dead’ comes alive in coffin

A woman in Ecuador reportedly came back to life after she was declared dead by a doctor following a suspected stroke.

El Universo newspaper in Ecuador said her family signed her death certificate, after which Bella Montoya, 76, was taken to a funeral parlor and placed in a coffin. Her family held a vigil before her scheduled funeral.

Five hours later, the woman reportedly gasped for air when the family members opened the coffin to change Montoya’s clothes ahead of the funeral.

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“My mom started to move her left hand, to open her eyes, her mouth; she struggled to breathe,” El Universo quoted her son Gilbert Balberán as saying.

Montoya was lying in an open casket, struggling to breathe, according to a video shared on Twitter.

#Ecuador: Una mujer de la tercera edad, de nombre Bella Montoya, fue dada por muerta en el hospital de Babahoyo.
Se la entregaron a su hijo al mediodía para que realizara el velorio, pero horas más tarde se dieron cuenta que aún estaba viva. pic.twitter.com/rpqPBnknfE

— Mauricio Orellana ✖️ (@MauriOrellanaSV) June 10, 2023

Moments later, firefighters arrived and lifted the woman from the coffin onto a stretcher. They transported her to the same hospital where she had been previously declared dead.

Her son told Ecuadorean media that she was in intensive care but was responsive.

“My mom 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,” he was quoted as saying by El Universo.

Ecuador’s Ministry of Health has set up a committee to investigate the incident.

Montoya’s son said he had taken his mother to a hospital at about 9 a.m. “and at noon a doctor told me [she] died,” according to the paper.

El Universo reported that the hospital issued a death certificate, citing that she had died of cardiopulmonary arrest after a stroke.

Montoya is reportedly not the only person to “come alive” after being officially declared dead.

In February, an 82-year-old woman was found breathing while lying in a funeral home in New York state. According to media reports, She was pronounced dead three hours earlier at a nursing home.

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