Image source, Getty Images
- author, Vicky Wong
- role, BBC News
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A Nebraska woman was mistaken for dead at a nursing home and later found alive at a funeral home, but was actually dead, authorities confirmed.
Constance Glantz, 74, was confirmed dead on Monday at a nursing home near the state capital, Lincoln.
Staff at a local funeral home where she was taken discovered she was still breathing about two hours later and immediately performed CPR.
Glantz was quickly taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead a second time a short time later, authorities said.
Police are currently investigating the incident but say there is no evidence of criminal intent on the part of the nursing home.
“This is a very unusual case,” Undersheriff Ben Houchin of the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office said at a press conference Monday.
“I’ve been doing this for 31 years and I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
Houchin told reporters that a coroner was not dispatched after Glantz was pronounced dead at the nursing home because she was in hospice care and the situation was outside the coroner’s jurisdiction.
Glantz’s death was expected, he explained.
It added: “She had been examined by a doctor within the past seven days, who was prepared to sign the death certificate and there was nothing suspicious at the time of her death.”
She was pronounced dead for a second time at about 6pm local time on Tuesday, Hauching later told reporters.
He added that an autopsy is scheduled for later Tuesday and results could take up to 12 weeks.
“The undertaker did absolutely nothing wrong,” Houchin added. “It was the undertaker who discovered she was still alive.”
Hawtin did not name the facility where the accident occurred, but the BBC has contacted the care home named by local media for comment.
The BBC also contacted the funeral home named in local media – Bucelas, Mother and Love Funeral Homes – which said in a statement: “We are proud that our directors and staff have handled the recently reported incidents appropriately and with the utmost care.”
Glantz isn’t the only person to reveal that he’s still alive after being declared dead.
Last June, 76-year-old Bella Montoya from Ecuador was declared dead after a suspected stroke and taken to a funeral parlor in a coffin for a wake before being buried. Five hours later, when the coffin was opened to change clothes, Bella was found to be alive. However, she died a few days later.
Dr Stephen Hughes, a senior medical lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University’s medical school in Chelmsford, said while such cases were rare, “dying is a process”.
“Sometimes something appears dead but isn’t actually dead,” Dr Hughes told the BBC after the Ecuador incident. “Careful testing is needed.”
Dr Hughes added that doctors often monitor heart sounds and breathing efforts for at least a minute before declaring a patient dead, and that some drugs can slow down internal body functions and make it appear as if the patient has died.
