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Mistake in Ecuador hospital: ‘corona death’ is still alive, family got ashes from stranger

When Alba Maruri woke up from a coma last Thursday and told the doctors her name, they didn’t know what they were hearing. At the end of March, they had told her family that she had died of the corona virus, the BBC writes.

Cousin was sure it was her

Alba had previously been admitted with a high fever and shortness of breath. After her ‘death’ on March 27, her cousin even came to see the hospital. He had to stay five feet away in the morgue, but thought he was sure his aunt was there. “I was afraid to look at her face,” he told AFP news agency. “She had the same hair and skin color.”


The woman in the morgue was cremated by the hospital and Alba’s family was sent for ashes. All the while, the 74-year-old woman was in a coma on the ICU. When Alba woke up, she immediately asked to call her sister. “It’s a miracle,” the sister told local media. “For a month we thought she was dead, you have to imagine. And I have someone else’s ashes.”

Apologies

In a response, the hospital defends itself by saying that it was total chaos because of the coronavirus outbreak. Ecuador has been hit quite hard, and the city of Guayaquil (where the hospital is located) is the epicenter. A team from the hospital visited the Alba family to apologize.


The family does not let it go and wants compensation. She wants at least the cost of the cremation back and money for a new mattress. They had already thrown away the old Alba mattress.


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