Talk about a close call!
An elderly COVID-19 victim in India woke up right before she was about to be burned alive after her family thought she had died from the virus.
According to reports, Shakuntala Gaikwad, 76, tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this month and was self-isolating at her home. However, she started showing major symptoms due to her age on May 10, so her family took her to Silver Jubilee Hospital in Baramati.
Related: Tom Cruise Defends His COVID Rant From Mission: Impossible Set
Unfortunately, Gaikwad’s family had trouble finding her a bed, as all the wards were full due to the overwhelming resurgence of the pandemic in the country, and she fell unconscious waiting in the ambulance outside. Thinking she had died, her family prepared her body to be cremated, but the elderly woman miraculously woke up on her own funeral bier moments before she went in!
Local media outlets reported that Shakuntala started to cry and panic before being taken back to the hospital for further treatment. Her current condition is not known. The incident comes as the country keeps battling a cataclysmic second wave of COVID-19. Over the past few weeks, record-breaking numbers of new cases and deaths were reported, while locals have been struggling to find hospital beds, oxygen, and medical treatment.
Video: Mariah Carey Belts Famous High Note While Getting COVID Vaccine!
People in India have choked to death in their homes, in hospitals, and outside crowded emergency rooms because of lack of oxygen. As the virus has ravaged the countryside, hundreds of corpses have been found in rivers. Locals said bodies had been washing up on embankments of the country’s holy Ganges river for several days, and that authorities ignored their complaints about the smell until the news made headlines.
A journalist in Kanpur told the BBC the corpses were evidence of a “massive discrepancy between the official Covid-19 death figures and the actual numbers on the ground,” noting that while officially 196 people had died from the virus in Kanpur between April 16 and May 5, the data from seven crematoriums showed nearly 8,000 cremations.
He added:
“All electric crematoriums were running 24/7 in April. Even that was not enough, so the administration allowed the grounds outside to be used for cremations using wood. But they only accepted bodies that were coming from hospitals with Covid-19 certificates, and a huge number of people were dying at home, without getting any tests. Their families took the bodies to the outskirts of the city or to neighbouring districts like Unnao. When they couldn’t find wood or a cremation spot, they just buried them on the river bed.”
So unbelievably devastating. Our hearts are with the people of India at this tragic time.
[Image via BBC]
The post COVID Victim Thought To Be Dead Wakes Up Moments Before Her Cremation! appeared first on Perez Hilton.
