It’s rare for dead people to wake up – but I’ve seen it with my own eyes
IT’S something we usually only see in horror movies – people rising from the dead.
But medics have said that it can happen in real life, even though the phenomenon is rare.
On February 27, a man in Florida, US was found to have been breathing after initially being declared dead by medics at his home.
The 65-year-old had suffered a cardiac arrest and was declared dead – only to later be found breathing again.
Dr Stephen Hughes, senior lecturer in medicine at Anglia Ruskin University, said events like this are rare.
Speaking to Insider, the expert said he has seen this happen twice during his 20-year-career.
The first time, Dr Hughes explained that an epileptic woman had taken an overdose of a drug which was previously prescribed for the condition, phenobarbital.
These work by slowing everything down and in some cases can induce sleep.
When the doctor arrived to check the patient, there was no response or heartbeat.
She was pronounced dead and was then taken to the mortuary, Dr Hughes said.
However, once at the mortuary, an attendant noticed that the woman’s leg was twitching.
On inspection, he found that the veins in her legs were fuller than they should be for a dead person.
After inspecting the woman, he discovered she still had a pulse and from there she was taken into intensive care and later recovered, the medic said.
TAKE TWO
The second experience Dr Hughes had of a patient waking from the dead was a woman in the resuscitation room.
Medics believed that the woman was a lost cause, so after several attempts, they stopped trying to revive her.
The woman was declared dead and medics left the room, with one staying in there to sort out the paperwork.
Then all of a sudden, the deceased patient started breathing again, which Dr Hughes said was ‘freaky’.
The patient died later that day and Dr Hughes said this is one case that he reflected on the most.
He added that if a doctor would have examined the patient properly and a heart monitor would have been left on to monitor activity, then the patient may not have wrongly been pronounced dead.
The expert added that death is a process rather than an event and said different body systems will shut down in different ways.
“It is not unusual to still hear a few bowel sounds around or even just after the time of death. This can cause confusion by masking quiet heart sounds,” he said.
The expert added that the Covid pandemic has meant many doctors have turned their back on the profession – leading to shortage.
He added that if final ‘death checks’ are being delegated to more junior doctors then this could cause problems.