One of my biggest fears is to wake up on a coffin. Am I buried yet? If so, how much dirt is above me? How much air do I have left? How much room is in the coffin for me to move around and try to escape? I could go on, but the thought of that happening makes me gasp for air and stretch my arms out. This Grandmother, who was thought to be dead, managed to take one of my worst nightmares and make it more terrifying. Via The Daily Mail:
A grandmother who was prematurely declared dead later awoke in a hospital’s freezer and desperately struggled to get out before eventually freezing to death, according to court documents.
The family of Maria de Jesus Arroyo, 80, can go forward with a lawsuit against the California hospital that prematurely declared her dead in July 2010, an appeals court ruled on Wednesday.
The California 2nd District Court of Appeal overturned a lower court ruling that the lawsuit against Boyle Heights’ White Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles was filed too late.
The appeals court ruled that the family had no way of knowing Arroyo, a married mother-of-eight, had later awoken and died in the freezer before a pathologist revealed his findings in 2011.
She woke up after being declared dead, but instead of a coffin, she was in a frozen tomb that killed her after she was wrongly declared dead. A miracle followed by a second death sentence? Yikes.
Mrs Arroyo, who had just celebrated her 80th birthday with relatives, suffered a heart attack on July 26, 2010 and was declared dead by staff at White Memorial, where she was placed in a freezer.
Morticians who received her body a few days later discovered that it was face down and that she had a broken nose and disfiguring cuts and bruises to her face, court papers said.
Where did all the cuts and bruises come from? I know that trying to save someone’s life from cardiac arrest can cause bruising when you survive it. My Dad had a heart attack, and all the work to save his life turned his legs, arms, and chest into a purple mess. But this was all on her face?
At a hearing in December 2011, a pathologist said she had been ‘frozen alive’, ‘eventually woke up’ and caused the injuries herself as she tried to escape the ‘frozen tomb,’ court records said.
The family withdrew the lawsuit and in May 2012 filed a medical-malpractice lawsuit, claiming the hospital mistakenly declared her dead and froze her while she was still alive.
Pretty much one of the most horrifying things that could happen to anyone. Surviving a heart attack is a major thing to go through. After it happens, you have to change your entire life to prevent that second possible death sentence. It’s horrible that before this woman could do that, she woke up to her next death sentence. Hey, doctors, please try to double and triple check to see if a person is dead before you call it? Thanks.
(Via The Daily Mail)