By Tim Binnall
An Ecuadorian woman's wake took a shocking turn when her family heard banging from her coffin and discovered that she was actually still alive. The stunning case reportedly began on Friday when Gilberto Barber brought his mother, Bella Montoya, to a hospital in the city of Babahoyo after she suffered a cardiopulmonary arrest following what is believed to have been a stroke. After attempts to revive the unconscious patient proved to be futile, she was declared dead by a doctor on duty and her body were handed over to her family for burial. They gathered together later that day for a celebration of her life and wound up witnessing a truly wondrous event.
"After about five hours of the wake, the coffin started to make sounds," Barber recalled, "it gave us all a fright." When they opened the casket, the family were astounded to discover that Montoya was still alive and had been trying to alert them to this surprising fact by banging on the inside of the box. While struggling to breathe, the woman was extracted from the coffin and brought back to the hospital, where she is currently in intensive care. As one might imagine, authorities in Ecuador have pledged to investigate the matter in the hopes of determining how such an egregious misjudgement could have been made.