A 73-year-old Italian man was back on his feet on Thursday, two days after spending 35 minutes in the afterlife, reports said.
According to Rome-based daily La Repubblica, the pensioner suffered a heart attack while being treated for unrelated problems in a hospital in Montova on Tuesday morning. No heart or brain activity was detected by machines for 25 minutes, leading doctors to certify his death.
Exactly 35 minutes later, however, his heart started beating again and doctors immediately applied normal intensive care procedures. The man eventually opened his eyes again and managed to say a few words, leaving doctors flabbergasted.
”The doctors called me around 8 o’clock to inform me that my father had died. At 9 o’clock, while I was on my way to Mantova and thinking about funeral arrangements, they called back to tell me my father had come to again. It’s a miracle,” the man’s daughter, who has not been named, was quoted as saying.
Doctor Roberto Zanini, head physician of the Carlo Poma hospital in Mantova, says such cases are rare but not unheard of in medical history.
According to his doctors, it is possible that the patient’s heart was beating so slowly — perhaps at one beat per minute — that the machines failed to pick it up and misled doctors into believing the man was dead while he was still alive. – Sapa-DPA