A 65-year-old woman, who had been wrongly declared dead and set to be cremated at the Wat Rat Prakhong Tham Buddhist temple, on the outskirts of Bangkok, was discovered alive by temple staff shortly before the ceremony.
The temple manager, Pairat Soodthoop, told The Associated Press that he was shocked when he heard a light knock coming from the coffin. He asked for it to be opened and saw the woman “opening her eyes a little and knocking on the sides of the coffin.” “She must have been knocking for a long time,” he added.
Her younger brother had notified the temple that the woman had died, but the manager says he had no death certificate. As temple staff were explaining the procedure for obtaining the document, the knocking from inside the coffin was heard again, revealing that the woman was alive.
The abbot ordered her to be taken to the hospital immediately. Doctors determined that she had suffered severe hypoglycemia, a critical drop in blood sugar levels. The doctor ruled out the possibility that she had suffered cardiac or respiratory arrest.
According to temple staff, the woman had been bedridden for two years, and on Saturday the family thought she had stopped breathing. Relatives had traveled about 500 km from Phitsanulok province for the cremation ceremony.
The incident has shocked the local community and sparked debate over death verification procedures in rural areas of Thailand.
