A woman who spent a week in intensive care in Ecuador after waking up at her own funeral has died this time.
Bella Montoya, 76, had been declared dead a week ago at a hospital in Ecuador. Her relatives were shocked during her funeral when the woman started banging on the inside of her coffin. She was rushed to the hospital in central Ecuador, after it was determined she had in fact woken up.
Doctors told him then that his mother’s situation was dire despite the wakeup. Bella Montoya had been admitted days earlier after suffering a possible stroke and cardiopulmonary arrest. She was unconscious when she arrived, and when doctors couldn’t revive her, they declared her dead and handed her son a death certificate and identity documents.
Montoya had catalepsy, a condition in which a person has a seizure, loses consciousness and then become rigid. The hospital has formed a committee to study how it death certificates, the country’s ministry of health said last week.
After waking up, Montoya spent several days in intensive care as the country’s health ministry investigated how doctors determine whether someone has in fact died, along with the procedure for issuing death certificates. She died on Friday evening, a week after interrupting her wake, Barbera Montoya said.
Montoya’s cause of death was an ischemic stroke, the Ecuadorian health ministry said , even though she had been under “permanent surveillance” during her hospital stay.
