Comedy of errors, homeless man declared dead was alive only to die two days later
Prakash a 50-year-old homeless man who was rushed to hospital after he was found unconscious at a bus stop, was declared dead on 13th October 2015, Tuesday night at the Lokamanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, at Sion , Mumbai India. He surprised mortuary staff by waking up just before post-mortem examination has died two days later in the same hospital.
The attendant at the mortuary realized the man was alive after he detected some movement, as initially he thought he was seeing a ghost,
A Senior doctor declared him dead and sent immediately to the mortuary for post- mortem. According to hospital rules and regulations patients pronounced dead are supposed to be kept on the ward for two hours in case the doctor has made an error. Cause of death was unclear.
Dr Suleman Merchant, the dean of the hospital, “ The patient was on a stretcher and his face was infested with maggots and was treated for removing maggots in his right ear and was unconscious. We treated him for electrolyte imbalance and transfused blood because he was anaemic . His pulse and heartbeat were absent and had fixed dilated pupils, and this prompted the senior doctor to believe that the patient was dead”.
Doctors resuscitated the man for 15 minutes and shifted him to intensive care unit. The man is recuperating but continues to be in a delirious state caused by severe intoxication. The causality medic-=al officer got intimidated by the police office who rushed him who ordered the doctor to examine the patient outside the casualty. The police were inplying to the doctor that the patient was dead and insisted him to issue the death certificate urgently.