Declared dead & kept in mortuary freezer for 7 hours, man found alive before autopsy

Moradabad: In a bizarre incident, a 40-year-old man who was declared dead and kept in a mortuary freezer for almost seven hours was found alive much to the shock of his family members and the doctors.

The man, Srikesh Kumar, an electrician had been brought to the hospital after he met with an accident on Thursday night. The doctor on duty had declared him dead since there was no heartbeat and his body was kept in a freezer at the mortuary pending a post-mortem examination.

Nearly seven hours later, when a ‘panchnama’ or document, signed by family members after identifying the body and agreeing to an autopsy – was to be filed by the police, Kumar’s sister-in-law Madhu Bala noticed that he was showing signs of movement.

In a video that went viral on social media, Bala can be heard saying: “He’s not at all dead. …He is breathing.”

A TOI report quoted Moradabad’s chief medical superintendent Dr Shiv Singh saying, “The emergency medical officer had seen the patient at 3 a.m and there was no heartbeat. He had examined the man multiple times. Thereafter, he was declared dead but, in the morning, a police team and his family found him alive. A probe has been ordered. Our priority is now to save his life.”

Singh said it was one of those “rarest of rare cases… We can’t call it negligence till all the reports are available”.

Meanwhile, Srikesh is undergoing treatment at a health centre in Meerut and is reportedly out of danger. His sister-in-law stated that the family would file a complaint against the Moradabad district hospital’s doctors for negligence as they almost killed Srikesh by putting him in a freezer.