Indian woman declared dead 'wakes up' as family prepare funeral pyre

In a bizarre incident a 72-year-old woman, who was declared 'dead', started breathing when her relatives were about to burn her 'body' on the funeral pyre on Wednesday. The woman is presently ailing since she has a severe blood clot in her brain and is undergoing treatment at a private hospital.

The incident took place at a village in Nawalgarh district of Jaipur. Hundreds of relatives of Magan Kanwar, a native of Dadi Ka Phatak in Jhotwara, had gathered and were preparing for the woman's funeral. When some women were performing the ritual of bathing the 'dead body', they realized she was breathing. Immediately after, her son Surendra Singh Rathore took her to hospital and in the afternoon she was admitted to another private hospital.



Divulging the details of the incident, Rathore said, "My mother had slipped in the bathroom on January 23. We took her to a private hospital in the city. The hospital authorities on the morning of January 24 declared her dead. We asked them to check again since she was on a ventilator and the doctors had diagnosed her with brain haemorrhage." Rathore said when the doctors verbally declared her dead, the family without seeking any death certificate took her to the native village for funeral on Wednesday.

"At the village while performing some rituals we found my mother was breathing and alive. Later, a doctor there told us everything, including her heart beat and blood pressure, was normal. The doctors had said she was unconscious due to severe blood clot in her brain and so we brought her here," Rathore added. He claimed the hospital that had declared his mother dead did not gave them a valid death certificate. "I did not get it since I was disturbed at the news of her death."