Two hours after a 74-year-old Nebraska woman was pronounced dead at her nursing home, workers at a funeral home made an astonishing discovery — she was still breathing.
“This is a very unusual case,” he said. “Been doing this for 31 years, and nothing like this has ever gotten to this point before.”
Her family has been notified, Houchin said.
Glantz had been in hospice care at a nursing home in Waverly, a suburb of Lincoln, Houchin said, adding that there is no coroner investigation when “the death of a patient is anticipated.”
A physician at the nursing home in Waverly had seen Glantz “in the last seven days” and was willing to sign her death certificate, Houchin said. He added that there was nothing suspicious about the circumstances, though an investigation into the incident is ongoing.
The nursing home and funeral home did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Though rare, there have been several recent incidents involving people who were wrongly declared dead. Last year, in Iowa, a woman who was presumed dead and placed in a body bag later woke up at a funeral home; her hospice facility was fined $10,000 for mistakenly pronouncing her dead. In 2022, two Denver firefighters were disciplined for failing to check on a woman declared dead by a police officer — she was, in fact, alive.
Last year, mourners in Ecuador discovered, to their shock, a woman knocking from her inside coffin, hours after she was declared dead.
In one case, a 66-year-old Florida man was discovered to be breathing more than 20 minutes after medics ruled him dead. His daughter told The Washington Post that medics had made the initial ruling without performing proper tests.
In Nebraska, Glantz was discovered to be alive when an employee at the funeral home in Lincoln noticed her breathing after she had been placed on a table. The worker immediately dialed 911, Houchin said.
“I’m sure that nursing homes and everybody are going to be taking a look into what has happened, and I’m sure they’ll look to see if new protocols need to be made or if they were all followed,” Houchin said.
