Webdesk: Bella Montoya, an Ecuadorian woman, was alive at her funeral. Babahoyo hospital doctors declared Bella deceased after a suspected stroke.
Her coffin carried to a funeral parlor, where her relatives held a vigil before her burial. When they opened the coffin to change her clothes five hours later, Bella gasped for air, shocking her family. Gilbert Balberán remembered the moment he realized his mother was alive: “My mum started to move her left hand, to open her eyes, her mouth; she struggled to breathe.”
One mourner’s video shows Bella trying to breathe in the open coffin while others complain that the ambulance they phoned hasn’t arrived. Firefighters returned Bella to the hospital where she declared dead. Her son said she was responsive in critical care. He said the doctor pinched her hand and she reacted, which was good.
Rarely, people who proclaimed dead recover. In New York State, an 82-year-old woman found breathing three hours after declared dead at a nursing home.
The Ecuadorian health ministry is investigating. These incidents demonstrate the difficulties healthcare practitioners confront in detecting death, especially when cold bodies or drug effects complicate the assessment.
