A 'dead' woman woke up in her coffin during her own wake.
A 'dead' woman started banging on the side of her coffin
Bella Montoya, 76, was declared dead at a hospital in Ecuador on Friday (09.06.23) but stunned her relatives when she started knocking on her coffin a few hours later.
The retired nurse's family had been told that she had passed away after suffering cardiorespiratory arrest but it turned out that it had caused her to suffer catalepsy - a trance-like condition that was mistaken as death by doctors.
Montoya is now being observed at the same hospital and a government investigation into the incident will take place.
Her son Gilberto Barbera said: "It gave us all a fright.
"There were about 20 of us there. After about five hours of the wake, the coffin started to make sounds. My mom was wrapped in sheets and hitting the coffin, and when we approached we could see that she was breathing heavily."