Jun 18, 2023 3:12 PM BST
Updated 2 hours ago
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Watch: ‘Dead’ woman breathing in coffin is taken to hospital
An Ecuadorian woman has died just days after mourners at her funeral were shocked to find her alive in her coffin.
Bella Montoya, 76, was first pronounced dead by a doctor at a hospital in the city of Babahoyo last week.
But when mourners attending her funeral service heard her pounding on her coffin, she was immediately taken back to the same hospital for treatment.
After seven days in intensive care, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Health confirmed that she died of an ischemic stroke on Friday.
The ministry statement went on to say that she remained under “constant surveillance” during her stay in hospital.
Speaking to a local newspaper, her son Gilbert Barbera said: “This time my mother 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 her burial in a public cemetery, local media reports.
Local media reported that Ms. Montaya was suffering from a condition called catalepsy, in which a person experiences seizures and loss of consciousness, and the body becomes stiff.
The Ecuadorian Ministry of Health has set up a commission of experts to examine her case.
Ms Montoya was placed in a coffin and taken to the funeral home in Babahoyo, southwest of the capital Quito, after she was pronounced dead on June 9.
But after nearly five hours inside, the woman gasped after her relatives opened the coffin to change her for the funeral.
Minutes later, she was placed on a stretcher by firefighters and taken back to the same hospital.
Bella Montoya isn’t the only person to “come alive” after being officially pronounced dead.
In February, an 82-year-old woman was found breathing while lying at a funeral home in upstate New York. She had been pronounced dead at a nursing home three hours earlier.