Bella Montoya, 76, was legally dead for hours before her astonished relatives realised she was alive (Picture: Twitter/@AztecaNews)
An elderly woman who had been declared legally dead before shocking her family by knocking on her coffin before her wake has died.
Bella Montoya, 76, was declared dead at Martín Icaza Hospital in Babahoyo, a coastal city in the Los Ríos province of Ecuador, on June 9.
Bella was placed inside a casket and was about to have a change of clothes at a funeral home ahead of her wake when she was discovered alive by her family.
But on Friday, Bella was declared dead a second time, her son Gilbert Barberá Montoya told CNN.
‘My mum died at 5pm, we were watching over her,’ he told the broadcaster.
She had passed away from an ischemic stroke after spending seven days in intensive care, the health ministry added in a statement yesterday.
She had spent hours knocking on the coffin (Picture: Twitter/@AztecaNews)
Bella’s daughter, Zeneida Lea, told CNN that her mother’s condition had been deteriorating for days.
‘She was very delicate,’ she said.
Gilbert said he is in contact with the country’s Civil Registry to have officials register the death of his mother a second time.
Health officials said the former nurse had been under ‘permanent surveillance’ since the incident, one in which the local press described her as having been ‘resurrected’.
Gilbert says the authorities have yet to provide a medical explanation about why his mother was incorrectly declared dead.
Things, he told the Associated Press, are not ‘going to stay like this’.
Bella died one week after the incident, leaving a wave of grief and unanswered questions in her wake (Picture: Twitter/ @AztecaNews
Bella’s sister is seeking to identify the doctor who mistakenly declared Bella deceased and has lodged a complaint against the hospital, accusing it of negligence.
The health ministry and the healthcare watchdog Acess said on June 11 that a technical committee has been formed to ‘establish responsibilities for the alleged confirmation of death’.
Bella had been rushed to hospital at around 9am after suffering from cardiorespiratory arrest – a loss of breathing and heart function.
When she did not respond to resuscitation a ‘doctor on duty declared her dead’ at around 12pm, the health ministry said at the time. A death certificate was issued.
But Bella woke up and knocked for some four hours inside her coffin at a funeral parlour before she was discovered in the evening.
In a viral social media clip, a person filming is heard saying: ‘We are here at 509 Olmedo Street where a person who was declared dead in the hospital has been in the coffin since noon, and it turns out the lady is alive.’
She passed away at the same hospital she had previously been declared dead at (Picture: Extra.ec)
‘My mother started to move the left hand, open her eyes, the mouth,’ Gilbert told local newspaper El Universo.
‘She was making an effort to breathe.’
Gilbert suggested the cardiorespiratory arrest may have caused her to suffer catalepsy – a trance-like condition where the body stiffens and stops moving.
With the funeral halted Bella was taken back to the very hospital she had only hours before been declared dead.
‘Little by little I am grasping what has happened,’ Gilbert added.
‘Now I only pray for my mother’s health to improve. I want her alive and by my side.’
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‘She was very delicate.’