A 'dead' teenager
woke up in her coffin and screamed for help one day after she was buried – but
died again before desperate relatives could save her. Grieving family members
pictured above breaking through the concrete tomb from where Neysi Perez, 16,
had been heard 'banging and screaming'.
Relatives who
removed the girl's corpse found that the glass viewing window on her coffin had
been smashed and the tips of her fingers were bruised. But despite efforts to
revive her medics found no signs of life and she was later returned to the
cemetery and reburied in the same mausoleum.
Ms Perez, who was
three months pregnant, reportedly fell unconscious after waking up in the night
to use the outside toilet at her home in La Entrada, western Honduras.
It was believed
she may have collapsed in an apparent panic attack after hearing a burst of
gunfire.
But when the
teenager started foaming at the mouth her religious parents called the local
priest believing she had become possessed by an evil spirit. Relatives told how
the priest tried to exorcise her, but she later became lifeless and was rushed
to hospital, where three hours later doctors declared her dead.
Ms Perez was
buried in the wedding dress she had recently used to get married.
A day after her
funeral, her husband Rudy Gonzales was visiting her grave at the La Entrada
General Cemetery when he heard banging and muffled screams from inside the
concrete tomb and raised the alarm.
The footage shows
desperate family members breaking through the concrete block tomb with a
sledgehammer, before bringing out and opening up Ms Perez's coffin to try to
revive her.
Mr Gozales told
local TV news Primer Impacto: 'I was heartbroken because my sweetheart had been
taken so suddenly from me. I wanted to be near to her.
'As I put my hand
on her grave I could hear noises inside. I heard banging, then I heard her
voice. She was screaming for help.
'It had already
been a day since we buried her. I couldn't believe it. I was ecstatic, full of
hope.'
Cemetery worker
Jesus Villanueva said he had also heard noises coming from the grave.
He said: 'I
convinced myself that the screams were coming from somewhere else. I never
imagined that there was someone alive in there.
'That afternoon
the girl's husband came to me begging me to get her out because she was alive.
'He was hysterical.
The family were soon here and started breaking through the tomb, shouting her
name.'
Ms Perez was
taken by truck to the nearest hospital in San Pedro Sula, where she was carried
in still inside her coffin.
But although
medics tried to revive her, all the tests they carried out showed that she was
clinically dead.
Doctor Claudia
Lopez recalled: 'The whole family rushed in, almost breaking the door down,
carrying the girl in her casket.
'I told them to
take her out and put her on the bed. Everybody was claiming she was alive so I
went through all the necessary procedures.
'We evaluated and
tried everything but the girl was dead. They put her back in the coffin and
took her away again, back to the cemetery.'
Doctors believe
Ms Perez may have suffered a severe panic attack which could have temporarily
stopped her heart activity.
Another
hypothesis is that the teenager had a cataplexy attack, an abrupt temporary
loss of voluntary muscle function typically triggered by a strong emotional
stimulus such as stress or fear, during which the victim maintains full
conscious awareness.
She may then have
died from lack of oxygen after waking up inside the closed coffin.
Her cousin,
Carolina Perez, said: 'Once we had taken her out of the tomb I put my hand on
her body. She was still warm, and I felt a faint heart beat.
'She had
scratches on her forehead and bruises on her fingers. It looked like she had
tried desperately to get out of the casket and hurt herself.
Ms Perez's mother
Maria Gutierrez firmly believes her daughter was buried alive and blames medics
for being too quick to sign her death certificate.
She said: 'The
doctors declared her dead but everybody else around me kept telling me she
wasn't. She didn't look like she had died.
'Even after a day
in the tomb the colour of her body was normal, her corpse didn't smell, she
just looked like she was in a deep sleep.
'There was no
rigamortis, her body was still flexible, it was impossible that she had been dead
for so many hours.
'We were all so
happy. After being declared dead for such a long time, everybody was saying
that she had come back to life.
'We were all so
happy. I thought I was going to get my daughter back.'
Source UK Daily
Mail