Woman who knocked on coffin during her funeral dies a week later from a stroke
- Five hours into her wake Bella Montoya’s son heard her ‘hitting the box’ with her left hand
- The woman from Ecuador died in intensive care a week after the shock discovery
A 76-year-old woman who had been declared dead and surprised her relatives by knocking on her coffin during her wake earlier this month has died after seven days in intensive care, her family said on Saturday.
Gilberto Barbera Montoya, the woman’s son, said doctors at the state hospital where she was rushed after the incident said she died on Friday evening.
Five hours into her wake her son heard her “hitting the box” with her left hand. A video showed her breathing heavily in the coffin. “They even gave us a death certificate,” he said.
Ecuador’s health ministry confirmed in a statement that Bella Montoya died from an ischemic stroke after spending a week in intensive care.
It added that Montoya had remained under “permanent surveillance,” but didn’t provide further information on the medical investigation surrounding the case.
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Barbera Montoya said that he hadn’t yet received any report from the authorities on the medical explanation of what happened and warned that things “are not going to stay like this.” He added that a sister of the deceased woman had formally complained about the incident, seeking to identify the doctor who declared her dead to begin with.
Bella Montoya reportedly woke up and started knocking on June 9 after spending five hours inside her coffin at a funeral home in Babahoyo, about 208km (about 129 miles) southwest of Quito.
The remains of Montoya, who was a retired nurse, are back at the same funeral home where she woke up. Her son told said she will be buried at a public cemetery.
A technical committee has been formed to review how the hospital issues death certificates, the country’s ministry of health said last week.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse.
