Thai family stunned after woman shows signs of life before planned cremation

A woman believed to be dead shocked her family and temple staff when she began moving inside her coffin

A family in Thailand was left shocked after a 65-year-old woman, believed to have died days earlier, began moving inside her coffin shortly before she was due for cremation.

Temple staff at Wat Rat Prakhong Tham in Nonthaburi, near Bangkok, said they noticed a faint knocking sound coming from the coffin as the woman’s brother arrived with her body.

When the lid was opened, she was seen slightly opening her eyes and moving her arms, leaving everyone present stunned.

According to temple officials, the brother explained that his sister had been bedridden for two years and had recently become unresponsive, appearing to stop breathing.

He placed her in a coffin and drove about 500km from Phitsanulok, hoping to fulfil her wish of donating her organs at a Bangkok hospital.

Without an official death certificate, however, the hospital declined to accept the body, and the brother turned to the temple for a free cremation service.

As staff were discussing the missing documentation, they heard the knocking that revealed she was still alive. She was immediately taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Doctors later determined she was suffering from severe hypoglycaemia, critically low blood sugar, and confirmed she had not experienced cardiac or respiratory arrest. The temple’s abbot has offered to cover her medical expenses.