This is the extraordinary moment a man came ‘back from the dead’ as he was being prepared to be cremated in India.
Rohitash, 45, showed faint signs of life to prevent his own cremation just moments before he was due to be put on the pyre in Jhunjhunu City, Rajasthan last Thursday.
Footage shows the live but seemingly catatonic man wrapped in a blanket and surrounded by stunned onlookers as he appears to resurrect himself.
Rohitash, who is both mute and deaf, had spent three hours in a freezing morgue before staff noticed that he was still breathing.
He had reportedly fallen critically ill the day before while staying at a local shelter before doctors declared him dead.
Officials explained the mistake to local media by claiming that medics had simply skipped the post-mortem examination to determine his death.
An ambulance was summoned to take him to the Rajkiya Bhagwan Das Khetan (BDK) Hospital after they realised the error.
Rohitash made small movements to stun onlookers as he was being prepared for cremation
He was quickly taken back to the hospital upon the discovery but died soon after
Video showed him being rushed back to the hospital after the horror mistake was realised
Officials said the patient was a mute and deaf orphan staying at a local shelter when he fell ill and was taken to BDK hospital on November 20.
Doctors declared him dead after his condition kept deteriorating.
Jhunjhunu Police Superintendent Sharad Chouodhary said: ‘The man did not have any relatives present when he initially arrived at the hospital.
‘His condition worsened and there were no signs of life.
‘The doctors were supposed to do a post-mortem examination but they did not do anything.’
‘They just fulfilled the paper formalities and sent the man for cremation.
There, Rohitash was reportedly kept for several hours in a cold mortuary before the funeral rites.
‘When the body was placed on the pyre, he woke up,’ Chouodhary said.
Rohitash was then rushed back to the same hospital for urgent treatment.
Sadly, local media reported that Rohitash died early November 22 morning while undergoing emergency treatment in the ICU of BDK Hospital.
Police said the principal medical officer and three doctors involved in the case have been suspended over the alleged negligence.
Last year, a woman was found ‘gasping for air’ in her body bag while being prepared for cremation at a care centre in Iowa.
The unnamed woman, who had early-onset dementia, anxiety and depression, was declared dead at the Glen Oaks Alzheimer’s Special Care Centre in Urbandale after becoming unresponsive.
The 66-year-old was soon placed in a zipped body bag and taken to the Ankeny Funeral Home and Crematory.
But when funeral home staff unzipped the bag, they found the woman was miraculously still alive.
Her chest was still moving and she was gasping for air, they said, as reported in a legal note.
Rohitash was reportedly deaf and mute and had spent three hours in a freezing morgue
Staff from the crematorium wheel Rohitash back out moments before he was to be cremated
The home called 911 and paramedics found a pulse and shallow breath.
A staff member from the care centre had reported the woman was not breathing and had no pulse while on a 12-hour shift.
The nurse said she had been checking on the woman ‘every hour on the hour throughout the night’ to administer morphine and lorazepam as ordered for comfort.
When she stopped responding, she continued to assess the resident for some five minutes before determining that she had died.
She was formally declared dead some 90 minutes later – and about two hours before being found alive.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
