**Warning: video below contains graphic images**
A woman who had been declared dead in hospital was not actually dead and knocked on her coffin during a wake.
The 76-year-old's relatives were shocked when they heard knocking noises coming from her coffin.
Advert
An investigation of the hospital in Ecuador is now being launched by the government.
Bella Montoya was then rushed back to hospital after family realised that she was still alive.
After the incident took place, the health ministry tried to reassure Ecuadorians that it 'maintains the offer of health services to the population at all levels of care'.
Advert
The review will look into the way the hospital issues death certificates as a technical committee reviews how the hospital issues death certificates, the ministry said in a statement.
The retired nurse was taken back to the medical room on Friday (9 June) in the central city of Babahoyo.
Son Gilberto Balberán told The Associated Press: "It gave us all a fright."
While investigations remain ongoing, Ecuador's Health Ministry said that Montoya was in intensive care at the Martín Icaza Hospital in Babahoyo on Monday (12 June).
Advert
Initially, the elderly woman had been admitted to the hospital with a possible stroke and cardiopulmonary arrest.
An on-duty doctor declared her dead after she did not respond to resuscitation, the ministry said.
According to her son, her death certificate said that she had died of ''cardiorespiratory arrest due to suffering from an unspecified cerebrovascular disease'.
The family then took her to a funeral home, where they started to hear strange noises coming from the coffin.
"There were about 20 of us there," Balberán added.
Advert
"After about five hours of the wake, the coffin started to make sounds.
"My mom was wrapped in sheets and hitting the coffin, and when we approached we could see that she was breathing heavily."
He said that his mother was still in a 'serious condition' after she was rushed to hospital on Friday and that doctors weren't giving relatives much hope about her prognosis.
Details of the doctor involved are yet to be released.
Advert
Similarly in 2021, an elderly woman, 76, woke up just moments before she was about to be cremated after her family thought she had died.
Shakuntala Gaikwad had reportedly contracted COVID and was isolating in her home when her condition became worse.
Her family then rushed her to hospital but, due to the ongoing spike in COVID cases in India, the hospital was unable to provide her with a bed so she remained outside in a private vehicle.
It was during this time that Shakuntala apparently stopped breathing, which led to her family believing she had passed away.
The family then took her home to start preparing her body from cremation, when the elderly woman woke up again, just moments before the funeral bier was about to be set alight.
She was said to have opened her eyes and started crying.
Her current condition remains unknown.
Topics: News, World News