By Euronews
Published on
A 65-year-old Thai woman was found alive in her coffin after being taken to a Buddhist temple for cremation.
The woman’s brother had put her in a coffin and driven her to Wat Rat Prakhong Tham, a temple in Nonthaburi province, after she appeared to stop breathing two days earlier.
Pairat Soodthoop, the temple’s general and financial affairs manager, said staff heard a faint knock coming from the coffin after she arrived.
“I was a bit surprised, so I asked them to open the coffin, and everyone was startled,” Pairat 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.”
A video posted by the temple on Facebook showed the woman lying in a coffin in the back of a pick-up truck, slightly moving her arms and head, leaving staff dumbfounded.
The woman was identified in Thai media reports as Chonthirat Sakulkoo. She had been bedridden for about two years, according to her brother Mongkol Sakulkoo.
When her health deteriorated and she became unresponsive, Mongkol put his sister in a coffin and drove about 500 kilometres from his home in Phitsanulok province to the Chulalongkorn University Hospital in Bangkok.
Chonthirat had expressed a desire to donate her organs to the hospital, but her brother was turned away as he did not have an official death certificate.
Mongkol then decided to take his sister to Wat Rat Prakhong Tham, which offers a free cremation service, but they also refused his request due to the missing document.
The temple manager said he was explaining how to get a death certificate when they heard the knocking. They then assessed Chonthirat and sent her to a nearby hospital.
Additional sources • AP