By Enyichukwu Enemanna
A 76-year-old Ecuadorian woman, Bella Montoya has woken up inside a coffin at the same state hospital where she was declared dead two days earlier, her son said on Sunday.
A video posted on Twitter shows Montoya, in her open coffin breathing heavily while two men assist her, an AFP report says.
Her son, Gilbert Balberán, said “she was hitting the box” with her left hand after the five-hour wake.
Balberán arranged for the donation of a coffin for the poor family after the Martin Icaza public hospital, in the coastal town of Babahoyo, declared his mother dead on Friday.
“They even gave us a death certificate,” he said in a video broadcast by local media.
Ecuadoran media reported the unusual incident, with headlines celebrating the woman’s “resurrection”.
“My mom is on oxygen. Her heart is stable. The doctor pinched her hand and she reacted,” Balberán said in an El Universo newspaper report.
“They tell me that this is good because it means that she is reacting little by little.”
Montoya was admitted to the hospital with a suspected stroke “and went into cardiorespiratory arrest without responding to resuscitation manoeuvres, so the doctor on duty confirmed her death,” Ecuador’s Health Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
The ministry said it had established a committee to investigate the incident and that it would supervise Montoya’s care.
Balberán said he had visited his mother in the hospital’s intensive care unit on Sunday.
“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.
