Crematorium worker horrified after he finds elderly woman, 90, still alive in body bag
The unsuspecting undertaker had gone to collect the body from a hospital's morgue when he realized the woman was still warm and breathing.
A crematorium worker had the shock of a lifetime when he discovered a 90-year-old woman he had gone to collect was still alive.
Norma Silveira da Silva had spent hours zipped up in a body bag after doctors at São José Regional Hospital, Brazil declared her dead last Saturday.
Da Silva had been admitted the day before unconscious and suffering from what are believed to have been liver issues.
Caretaker and friend Jessica Martins Silva Pereira visited the nonagenarian only a few hours before her supposed death and the elderly woman had managed to open one of her eyes.
On Saturday evening, Pereira and da Silva's son were notified she had died but neither was allowed to see her before her body was moved to the hospital's morgue.
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According to the death certificate, issued at 11:40 p.m. on Saturday, da Silva had died because of a "urinary tract infection."
The crematorium worker went to collect the woman's body around 1:30 a.m. but noticed it was still warm and wasn't showing the rigidity associated with rigor mortis despite having supposedly been dead two hours.
Pereira told Brazilian outlet NaTelinha: "When he opened the bag, she was breathing very weakly. And, as she was no longer conscious, she couldn’t ask for help, she tried to breathe and couldn’t."
She said her friend had spent nearly two hours "almost suffocating to death" before the worker finally noticed something was wrong.
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Da Silva was quickly moved back to a hospital room but she died, officially, at 5 a.m. on Monday morning.
The second death certificate noted the alleged cause of death as "septic shock", a condition that happens when blood pressure drops to dangerously low levels because of an infection.
Pereira said her friend's family is now planning to sue the hospital, adding: "It’s a neglect that I wouldn’t wish on anyone."
The Brazilian Department of Health has now opened an investigation into the incident.
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