Declared dead at the hospital, he wakes up moments before his cremation

“The body started to move.“An Indian woke up from the dead, a few moments before his cremation, after a doctor failed to carry out his autopsy, a medical official told AFP on Saturday, November 23. This young man of 25 year old, named Rohitash Kumar, had fallen ill and was taken to Jhunjhunu hospital in Rajasthan, in the north of the country.

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“He was alive” and “breathing”

According to Indian media, he was epileptic and suffered from speech and hearing difficulties. It was also after an epileptic attack that Rohitash Kumar was rushed to the nearest hospital. When he arrived at the hospital, a doctor declared him dead. But the hospital’s chief doctor, D. Singh, told AFP that a doctor had “prepared the post-mortem report without performing the autopsy, and that the body was then sent for cremation“.

The chief medical officer added that “shortly before“his cremation,”the body (…) began to move“but also that”he was alive and breathing“. The young man was taken to hospital a second time, but he was pronounced dead on Friday, November 22. Three doctors were suspended, and the police opened an investigation, reported the Times of India and other Indian media.

A previous case of “post-mortem awakening”

A month earlier, another case of “post-mortem awakening” hit the headlines, this time in the United States. A 36-year-old man, declared brain dead, woke up as doctors prepared to remove his heart as part of organ harvesting. This exceptional case had repercussions as far as France, where refusals of organ donations jumped in the days following the media coverage of this news item, according to the Biomedicine Agency.