We are only guaranteed one thing in this life, and that’s death. Sometimes we know death may come soon, and other times it blindsides us. Losing a loved one is one of the most difficult things we can endure, and making arrangements after the death is no picnic either. But as one family in Thailand learned, you have to be 100% sure someone’s dead before trying to cremate them.
According to a report by the Associated Press, Wat Rat Prakhong Tham, a Buddhist temple in Thailand, posted a video of a seemingly dead woman in a coffin. Suddenly, she began to make movements not long before her impending cremation.
Pairat Soodthoop, the temple’s general and financial affairs manager, told the AP the woman’s brother delivered her for cremation.
“I was a bit surprised, so I asked them to open the coffin, and everyone was startled,” he said. “I saw her opening her eyes slightly and knocking on the side of the coffin. She must have been knocking for quite some time.”
The brother apparently told Soodthoop his 65-year-old sister hadn’t left her bed for nearly two years. She became extremely ill, and he believed she had stopped breathing, the AP reported. He put her in the coffin and drove her 300 miles to a hospital in Bangkok, where she wanted to donate her organs. Luckily, the hospital refused.
Staff wanted the man to produce a death certificate, which he did not have. So instead, he went to Wat Rat Prakhong Tham to take advantage of the temple’s free cremation service. Once again, they got lucky when he couldn’t produce the death certificate. As Soodthoop spoke with the man, they heard the knocking and saved the woman.
The temple offered to cover the woman’s medical expenses after an ambulance took her away. The surprising turn of events had to be unsettling for everyone but also one heck of a story to tell someday.
