‘Dead’ woman wakes in coffin at her own funeral: ‘Miracle from God’
This funeral was overkill.
Mourners at an Ecuadorian wake were left stunned after their “dead” relative began banging on the inside of her coffin.
Bella Montoya, 76, regained consciousness during the vigil, which was held in the city of Babahoyo on Friday.
Incredible video shows medics tending to Montoya after her loved ones realized she was still alive.
She can be seen clearly breathing as she is removed from the casket and placed onto a stretcher.
“Her left hand was hitting the side of the coffin, and it was shaking,” Montoya’s son, Gilbert Balberán, told local media, according to Jam Press.
Balberán claims the wake was held just four hours after Montoya was declared dead, with a medical examiner even providing him with a death certificate.
Her cause of death was listed as cardiorespiratory arrest.
According to Balberán, the cardiorespiratory arrest caused her to suffer catalepsy — a trancelike condition marked by the rigidity of the body, decreased sensitivity to pain, and slower bodily functions such as breathing.
As a result, hospital staff allegedly believed that she had passed away.
Montoya is now being tended to at the same hospital that declared her dead, and her son says she is in stable condition.
“My mother is on oxygen. Her heart is stable,” he declared. “The doctor squeezed her hand, and she reacted. They tell me this is a good sign because it means she is reacting little by little.”
“Now, I only ask that my mother’s health improves,” he added. “I want her alive and by my side.”
While Balberán described the event as a “miracle from God,” he says he is “coming to grips with what has happened.”
Ecuador’s Ministry of Health has assigned a technical team to investigate why a death certificate was erroneously rubber-stamped.
However, it’s not the first time that a person has been determined to be alive at their own funeral.
Just last year, relatives of a 3-year-old Mexican girl were stunned when they noticed the glass window of her coffin fogging up at a funeral viewing.
Attendees subsequently checked for a pulse and found that the youngster was still alive — although she later passed away in the hospital.
