By Desire Emmanuel, with Agency Reports
Staff at Wat Rat Prakhong Tham temple near Bangkok, Thailand, said they were alerted after they heard knocking from inside the coffin moments before the cremation of a woman was due to start, Sky News reported.
The 65-year-old woman had been taken to the Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok, after she stopped breathing and was taken for dead two days earlier.
Her family had travelled hundreds of miles with her body in the coffin and were preparing for her to be cremated.
However, moments before the cremation service began, a shocked temple manager, Pairat Soodthoop, said he heard a faint knock coming from inside the coffin.
“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 cremation was due to be live-streamed by the temple.
Thairath, the country’s best-selling newspaper, named the woman in question as Chonthirat Sakulkoo, and said she was brought in by her brother, Mongkol Sakulkoo.
The brother said she had been bedridden for about two years before her health deteriorated further and she became unresponsive, appearing to have stopped breathing, according to Mr Soodthoop.
So, the brother placed her in a coffin and drove her from their home in Phitsanulok province, in the north of the country, to the capital, Bangkok.
The Bangkok Post also reported that the woman’s brother had been told by local officials that his sister had died.
The woman had wished to donate her organs to a hospital in the Thai capital, but her brother was turned away as he did not have the relevant paperwork.
Instead, he went to the temple, which offers a free cremation service.
After the woman was discovered alive, she was assessed and sent to Bang Yai Hospital where she was treated for hypoglycemia before being released back to her brother, Thairath reported,
Asked how he felt to learn that his sister is still alive, Mr Sakulkoo said he was indifferent, according to the newspaper.
