A week after reviving at her wake, woman is now dead, doctors say
The apparent resurrection did not mean the 76-year-old former nurse had suddenly made a miraculous recovery.
An Ecuadoran woman who was declared dead and then hospitalized after she was found alive inside her coffin has been deemed deceased for a second time, according to health officials in the coastal South American country.
Bella Montoya was initially hospitalized on June 9 at Martín Icaza Hospital, in the central Ecuadoran city of Babahoyo, about 200 miles southwest of the capital, Quito, after a suspected stroke. She went into cardiorespiratory arrest and was declared dead by a doctor.
About five hours into the wake, which was held the same day, her son started to hear noises coming from the coffin.
"The coffin started to make sounds," Gilberto Barbera told the Associated Press. He said his mother was "wrapped in sheets and hitting the coffin."
But the apparent resurrection did not mean the 76-year-old former nurse had suddenly made a miraculous recovery. Video of the episode showed Montoya being lifted out of the coffin onto a stretcher, with her hospital bracelet still looped around her arm. She was transported back to the hospital in critical condition.
After a week in an intensive care unit, Montoya was declared dead Friday, Ecuador's Public Health Ministry said in a statement. She experienced an "ischemic cerebrovascular event," the ministry said, which involves the restriction of blood flow to the brain.
While hospitalized for the second time, she received "comprehensive medical care and periodic evaluation by hospital specialists," the statement said.
After she was found to be alive, her family worked to have her death certificate reversed so that she would again be eligible for public benefits to cover the cost of her medicine, the Ecuadoran newspaper El Universo reported.
Barbera, her son, had expressed hope that she would be able to leave the hospital alive, the newspaper El Comercio reported. He told the outlet that on Friday, before she was declared dead for the second time, she was breathing and "slowly moves her eyes."
The health agency said it was investigating how the woman was declared dead the first time. The hospital could not immediately be reached for comment.
Montoya's week-long rebound is among a handful of other such revivals in recent history. This month, a 58-year-old man in central Ecuador was found alive shortly after he was declared dead from a heart attack, according to El Comercio. He reportedly died a short while later.
A Florida man who was declared dead in February was also seen breathing 20 minutes later.
He lived to tell the tale: “It was just a trip, man,” he said in an interview with The Washington Post. “Not that I even recall it, but my God.”