Woman who woke up alive inside coffin now officially dead
QUITO, Ecuador — An elderly Ecuadoran woman who woke up inside a coffin at her own wake -- sparking a viral video, of course -- has now died for real, authorities said Sunday.
A video posted on social media last week shows Bella Montoya, 76, in her open coffin breathing heavily while two men assist her. Her son, Gilbert Barbera, said she had been banging on the inside of the casket, desperate to get out as her relatives mourned her.
She had been erroneously declared dead on June 9.
After the ordeal at the wake, Montoya was kept in the hospital in the town of Babahoyo. She died of a stroke on Friday, the regional health department said.
"This time my mother really did die," Barbera was quoted as saying by the newspaper El Universo. "My life will not be the same."
The Health Ministry has ordered a probe into how she was declared dead in error the first time.
Local news reports said Montoya suffered from a condition called catalepsy, in which a person loses sensation and consciousness and the body becomes rigid.
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