Miracle or medical mistake: Man, 70, ‘resurrects’ in mortuary, 30 hours after ‘demise’

 

THE ‘resurrection’ of 70-year-old Amos Otene after he was certified dead by medical practitioners and made to spend over 30 hours in a mortuary in Makurdi, Benue State capital has thrown up a debate. Doctors, according to a report, at a private hospital in the town had, on Wednesday, August 26, 2015, certified  Otene dead at 4.30 a.m. and  wheeled him into the mortuary, awaiting instructions from members of the family for embalming.

The report stated that, but for the visit by the son of the ‘deceased’ to confirm the news, the Otene family would have been preparing to inter the agriculturalist who retired from Benue State civil service three years ago.  The old man had toothache and was rushed to the private clinic, on Tuesday, August 25. A day later, he was certified dead and the doctors whose names were not mentioned in the report could have immediately ordered his embalming, but there was no family member to give the go-ahead. So they wheeled him to the morgue.

30 hours thereafter, Eche Otene, the son of the ‘deceased’, who lives in Lafia, Nasarawa State, came visiting and the hospital was thrown into confusion   when the father raised his hand to acknowledge the presence of his son and followed that gesture by sitting up on the mortuary trolley.

The question now is: Was the man sentenced to death by an inexperienced medical team or he actually died but was brought back to life by God?

To the science-inclined minds, Pa Otene could not have died in the first place and the question of resurrection was out of the question. The only explanation, according to a Makurdi-based medical practitioner, Dr. Ameh Edace, is that the  retiree could only have been “in a long coma”.

The Medical Director of Rekiya Memorial Hospital, Kaduna, Dr. Bello Mohammed, said that “in the history of medicine, there has not been any case of anybody coming back to life after being certified dead.” He added: “If a person is pronounced clinically dead, he remains dead and there is no way he can come back to life, certainly not after 24 hours. On this case in question, the only medical explanation is that the patient was in a long coma.”

To this school of thought therefore, if  doctors  had certified Pa Otene dead, then the competence of such  doctors  should be called to question.  In other words, something must be amiss with the death certification.