An Indian man who was declared dead by doctors and kept in a mortuary freezer for seven hours was actually found to be alive – to the amazement and bewilderment of his family and medical staff.
Sreekesh Kumar, a 45-year-old electrician was in a critical condition after being hit by a motorbike in Moradabad, New Delhi and after being taken to hospital he was declared dead by the doctors on Thursday night, The Times of India reported.
Once this happened, Kumar was then moved into a freezer in the mortuary to await a post-mortem examination the following day.
Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter
Hours had passed, when family members arrived and identified Kumar’s body and signed a document agreeing to an autopsy, Kumar’s sister-in-law Madhu Bala spotted signs of movement from Kumar – despite him supposedly passing the night before.
Recording the astonishing discovery, Bala shouted: “He’s not dead, in fact far from it. How did this happen? Look, he wants to say something, he is breathing,” as shocked family members surround Kumar and request for doctors and the police to come.
Moradabad’s chief medical superintendent, Dr Shiv Singh, described the incident as the “rarest of rare cases” and said: “The emergency medical officer had seen the patient at around 3am and there was no heartbeat. He told me he had examined the man multiple times.
“Therefore he was declared dead. In the morning, a police team and his family found him alive. A probe has been ordered and our priority, at the moment, is to save his life,” The Times of India reported.
Meanwhile, Rajendra Kumar, the hospital’s medical superintendent described the whole situation as “nothing short of a miracle.”
He told AFP: “The emergency medical officer examined him. He did not find any signs of life and hence declared him dead.
“When a police team and his family came over to initiate the paperwork for the autopsy, he was found alive.”
Kumar remains in a coma and his yet to regain consciousness, while according to The Times of India, Bala told reporters: “We will lodge a complaint against the doctors for negligence as they almost killed Srikesh by putting him in a freezer.”