A family in Ecuador got the surprise of a lifetime when they found out a relative they thought had died from COVID-19 was actually alive.
The hospital had mixed up its patients and declared the woman, Alba Maruri, dead from the virus. However, Maruri, who was in a coma, later woke up and called her family, the BBC reports.
The 74-year-old woman was thought to have died on March 27, according to doctors in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Her family even came to the hospital morgue that same day but had to keep their distance when identifying the body. Maruri’s nephew, Jamie Morla, told the hospital he believed it was his aunt.
“I was afraid to see her face,” he told AFP. “I was a meter and a half away. She had the same hair, the same skin tone.”
The body was cremated and the family received the ashes. So it was quite stunning when Maruri called them on Thursday when she had been presumed dead for three weeks. After regaining consciousness, she called to ask her sister, Aura, to pick her up.
“It’s a miracle,” Aura told AFP. “For nearly a month, we thought she was dead.”
The pandemic has overwhelmed Ecuador’s healthcare system, causing chaos. Maruri’s family is now trying to figure out whose ashes they have and if they can be reimbursed for the cost of the cremation.
