A woman in Thailand stunned temple staff when she began moving inside her coffin just before she was due to be cremated.
Wat Rat Prakhong Tham, a Buddhist temple in Nonthaburi province on the outskirts of Bangkok, shared a video on its Facebook page showing the woman lying in a white coffin in the back of a pickup truck. In the footage, she appears to slightly move her arms and head, leaving those present visibly confused and alarmed.
Pairat Soodthoop, the temple’s general and financial affairs manager, told The Associated Press on Monday that the woman, 65, had been brought to the temple by her brother, who drove her from Phitsanulok province for cremation.
He said staff heard a faint knocking sound from inside the coffin.
“I was a bit surprised, so I asked them to open the coffin, and everyone was startled,” he recalled. “I saw her opening her eyes slightly and knocking on the side of the coffin. She must have been knocking for quite some time.”
According to Pairat, the woman had been bedridden for around two years. Her health had sharply declined, and she eventually became unresponsive, appearing to stop breathing two days earlier. Believing she had died, her brother placed her in a coffin and began a roughly 500-kilometer (300-mile) journey to a hospital in Bangkok, as she had previously expressed a wish to donate her organs.
However, the hospital declined to accept the body because he did not have an official death certificate, Pairat said. The brother then turned to Wat Rat Prakhong Tham, which offers free cremation services, but the temple also initially refused for the same reason.
Pairat explained that while he was outlining the steps needed to obtain the death certificate, they suddenly heard the knocking from the coffin. Staff then checked on the woman, realized she was still alive, and quickly arranged for her to be transported to a nearby hospital.
The abbot has since agreed that the temple will cover her medical expenses, Pairat added.
