Relatives saying their final goodbyes to a loved one in a morgue were in for the shock of their lives when the ‘corpse’ began breathing and showing signs of life
A man who was declared dead gave morticians a bloodcurdling shock after seemingly returning to life hours later.
The 90-year-old patient was taken to the hospital for treatment on September 1. In the early hours of the following morning, he suffered cardio-respiratory arrest.
After a series of apparently failed resuscitation attempts, the elderly man remained unresponsive and was pronounced dead in the emergency room. But this wasn’t the end of his story.
After the patient was wheeled to the morgue, things took an unexpected turn, and it soon became clear that the ‘corpse’ was showing vital signs.
Loved ones arrived at the morgue, located in the Brazilian municipality of Palmeira dos Índios, at around 6am that day to say their final goodbyes. They could never have imagined the events that would unfold next.
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To their great surprise, one relative noticed that the ‘body’ of their family member was in fact still breathing. Penedo FM reports that an examination then followed, which confirmed that the supposedly deceased patient was indeed breathing and also had a pulse.
After being released from the morgue, the man was once again hospitalised at the UPA emergency care unit, where he remained unresponsive and sadly died during the early hours of the morning.
This rare occurrence sparked shockwaves across the hospital and the wider local community, raising questions as to how this could have been occurred.
Addressing the disturbing incident in a statement released last week, the UPA management clarified that “no technical, medical or nursing errors had been identified in the patient’s care”, and that all protocols had been followed.
The unit also emphasised its willingness to co-operate with authorities to determine what exactly happened, agreeing that the case should now be analysed by expert organisations, such as the Patient Safety Unit and the Death Review Committee.
Although certainly unusual, patients appearing to come back from the dead isn’t unheard of, even after many hours had passed. As explained by the Cleveland Clinic: “The Lazarus effect (autoresuscitation) is when someone declared dead from cardiac arrest suddenly shows signs of life, usually within 10 minutes of CPR ending. This makes it seem like they’ve come back to life, but in fact, they hadn’t died. This is a rare phenomenon, and healthcare providers don’t know the exact cause.”
The medical term for the Lazarus effect is “autoresuscitation,” in reference to spontaneous circulation returning after cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) has ceased. Such an event may well appear miraculous to onlookers, but sadly, the majority of patients who go through this don’t survive for very long following the short return of blood flow.
There have been various documented instances of patients ‘returning from the dead’ throughout history. One particularly intriguing case is the story of Frenchman Angelo Hays, who was declared dead in 1937 after crashing his motorbike into a brick wall. A few days after his burial, Hays’ body was dug up for insurance purposes, and it was discovered that he was, in fact, still alive.
Although his experience was no doubt a traumatic one, Hays understandably made sure to capitalise on it, as per Discover magazine, and embarked on a nationwide tour in a coffin.
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