A miracle or a medical mystery? For doctors and loved ones of Srikesh Kumar, his story is a bit of both after Mr Kumar was pronounced dead and then proceeded to wake up after a night in a morgue freezer.
Dubbed the man who exemplifies a “bizarre twist of fate” as per VICE, the 45-year old electrician from India was at first a tragic case. Kumar was hit by a speeding motorcycle in the city of Moradabad in India.
Upon his arrival at the emergency rooms, Kumar was pronounced dead.
According to AFP, who spoke to the hospital’s medical superintendent Rajendra Kumar, “the emergency medical officer examined him. He did not find any signs of life and hence declared him dead.”
As a result, he was placed in a morgue freezer so that his family could come collect him on the morning of November 20. He was kept there for six hours as VICE reports.
Morning came, and Kumar’s family members were prepared to sign a document to agree to an autopsy after they identified the body. His sister-in-law, alongside four other members, entered the morgue to see his body. However, his sister-in-law, Madhubala Gautam noticed upon touching Kumar, that was not dead.
“I touched his cheeks, and called him jija ji (brother-in-law). To my happiness and horror, it was warm. He was breathing,” Gautam told Times of India.
A video taken by the family of Kumar’s life-signs quickly went viral.
According to the superintendent, the survival has been titled “nothing short of a miracle.”
The Tribune indicates that this wasn’t a case of negligence as when Kumar was brought in at 3am, he was examined multiple times and no heartbeat was detected.
Moradabad’s chief medical superintendent, Shiv Singh, told The Tribune that the emergency medical officer who examined Kumar when he was brought in at 3am found no heartbeat.
“He had examined the man multiple times,” Singh said.
The Times of India further reported that the morgue freezer was affected by power outages, whereby the freezer would switch on and off. Usually, the freezer is kept at temperatures below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, or lower than 10-degrees Celsius. According to the doctor the Times of India spoke to, this could have been what saved Kumar’s life.
A probe into the mistaken declaration of death has been ordered, as BusinessInsider reports. This a case being dubbed the “rarest of rare cases”.
Picture: AFP