For many, a great fear is to awaken while in a casket…especially one underground. There have been several reports of people being declared deceased only to come back to life later or discovering that they were never dead to begin with. Recently, an 82-year-old woman at Water’s Edge Rehab and Nursing Center in Port Jefferson on Long Island was declared dead by medical personnel, but her body was later discovered to be breathing when it arrived at O.B. Davis Funeral Home in Miller Place. This is the second such case reported in the last month, with the first one taking place at Glen Oaks Alzheimer’s Special Care Center in Urbandale, Iowa.
At around 11:15am, the elderly woman from New York was pronounced deceased and taken to the funeral home two hours later. At approximately 2:09pm, a staff member noticed that she was still breathing inside her body bag after sensing movement from within. EMS workers were immediately called to the scene and detected a heartbeat and faint eye movement, though she remained unresponsive. She was transported to a nearby hospital soon after, but her condition remains undisclosed due to privacy concerns from both parties involved.
The attorney general’s office has opened an investigation into this incident while the Glen Oaks Alzheimer’s Special Care Center in Urbandale received a fine of $10,000 for two violations related to the prior case that occurred there. In that instance, a woman had been declared dead by a licensed nurse and sent to a funeral home where she briefly gasped for air before being brought to a hospital where her family joined her shortly after where she passed away peacefully two days later.
These cases offer important reminders of how easy it is for medical staff members to make mistakes or overlook certain details when determining if someone is truly deceased or not. Therefore, it is essential for them to take all necessary precautions before declaring death such as double-checking vital signs or doing further tests like brain scans before proceeding with any funerary services so as to avoid these life-altering mistakes.
