Being buried alive is listed by many people as their worst way to die. Can you imagine being stuffed into a coffin, conscious or unconscious and living the remaining hours or days of your life confined in a very small box?
Well that scenario was nearly a reality for a prisoner in Spain who was found unresponsive in his cell.
According to telecinco.es, Gonzalo Montoya was found inside his cell at the penitentiary centre in Asturias and was completely out of it. But we don't mean 'out of it' like the bloke who passed out at your house party and won't wake up - he was deemed medically dead.
Two doctors at the prison believed he had died and the court sent a forensic doctor from the judicial commission to officially declare his death.
He was placed in a bag and taken to Legal Medicine Institute of Oviedo for an autopsy to determine how he died.
However other forensic doctors couldn't believe their ears when they heard noises coming from the 29-year-old.
Doctors have told local media that it could be a case of catalepsy, which is a trance or seizure, where you completely lose all sensation and consciousness.
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Other symptoms include an incredibly rigid body and limbs and a slowing down of bodily functions like breathing and heart rate.
That's why medical professionals declared him dead because his pulse was so faint that they couldn't detect it.
The prisoner was taken to Central University Hospital of Asturias in Oviedo for some tests to ensure his health is up to scratch.
The Daily Mail reports that Montoya was feeling ill the day before the incident and his wife claims he suffers from epilepsy. Catalepsy is a symptom of epilepsy as well as Parkinson's disease and is also a characteristic symptom of cocaine withdrawal, according to Good Therapy.
Other medications, such as anti-psychotics and ketamine as known to also induce catalepsy.
It's nearly as close a call as a Peruvian man who woke up from a coma at his open-casket funeral. Watson Doroteo, 24, from Tingo Maria was believed to have died after suffering a fever and chills following a root canal operation.
However, when the man's chest began rising and falling during his funeral, his terrified family called doctors, who came out and confirmed that Doroteo was in fact showing vital signs.
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The man was transferred from his coffin and taken to hospital, but was sadly declared dead - for a second time - on arrival.
His family suggested that he may have been alive the whole time and was simply sedated by drugs from the operation.
Sources: telecinco.es, Daily Mail, Good Therapy
Topics: Death, News, Strange, Spain, Weird, Dead