A 91-year-old Polish woman was declared dead by her family doctor and sent to a morgue as her family made the plans for her funeral, set for just two days later.
The grandmother wasn't quite finished with her time on earth yet because morgue workers were shocked to find her moving in her body bag, alive and well, albeit complaining of being cold.
Janina Kolkiewicz was kept in cold storage for 11 hours before it was discovered that she was not, in fact, deceased. Her niece had initially called their doctor, Dr Wieslawa Czyz, on Nov. 6 when they noticed she had stopped breathing in her sleep.
According to the doctor, she had no pulse and he signed her death certificate.
"I checked the pulse on the forearm artery, carotid artery also. I listened to the heart, to the breathing. I also examined the pupils. There were no reflexes. Typical symptoms of death," Czyz said in an interview.
The family was shocked when mortuary staff called to tell them that Kolkiewicz was found moving in her body bag. They brought her back home where she ate two pancakes and had a bowl of soup to warm her up after the ordeal.
Bogumila Kolkiewicz, the niece, said her aunt remains unaware of the extraordinary circumstances she had just gone through.
"My aunt has no inkling of what happened since she has late-stage dementia," she said.
Meanwhile, prosecutors in Lublin, where the family lives, are carefully looking into what happened.
"We are investigating whether the doctor exposed the woman to imminent danger of loss of life, as the lady was moved to a funeral home and kept in cold storage," said a spokesperson for the office of the prosecutor Beata Syk-Jankowska.
Kolkiewicz's death certificate has been rendered invalid and she remains at home with her family.
