Death Becomes Her

'Dead' woman moves arm at funeral home
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A Colombian woman declared dead of a heart attack moved one of her arms just as an undertaker was about to embalm her, doctors said Wednesday.

Noelia Serna, 45, was rushed to a hospital in the city of Cali, where she was in critical condition in an intensive care unit Wednesday, said hospital director Luis Fernando Rendon.

“Her chances of survival are slim,” Rendon said.

Serna, who has multiple sclerosis, was admitted to the same Cali University Hospital on Monday after a heart attack, Rendon said. She survived for about 10 hours on life support, but then seemingly didn’t respond to resuscitation efforts following a second attack. She was declared dead early Tuesday.

About two hours later, funeral home employee Jaime Aullon was just about to inject embalming fluid into Serna’s left leg when he saw her move.

“She was moving her right arm,” he said. “I stopped the procedure and brought her back to the hospital to be treated.”

On rare occasions, a person’s heart rate and breathing can drop to undetectable levels, leading doctors to erroneously declare a patient dead, said neurosurgeon Juan Mendoza Vega, a member of the Colombian National Medical Ethics Board.

“It can happen,” he said. “But it’s not a matter of coming back to life because the person was never dead.”

Remind me never to almost die when I'm in Columbia "doing business." If you show a couple symptoms they'll just throw your ass in a body bag.

But this story did remind me of a friend of one of my dad's friends. He took a job as an undertaker's assistant in college. One night he was supposed to be off and got real drunk but was called into work to go pick up a dead woman in a neighboring country. He loaded her up in the back of the hearse and was driving back to the funeral home (still drunk) when riggamortis set in her legs and she popped up, eyes still open. He got a glimpse of her in the rear view, drove into the bar ditch and jumped out of the car screaming. He walked back to town and the undertaker had to go pick up the car. Dead people are a hoot.