A young American woman who had been mistakenly declared dead opened her eyes just as undertakers were preparing to embalm her.
Timesha Beauchamp was believed to have passed away at her home in Detroit, Michigan, after being found unresponsive and in cardiac arrest on Sunday morning.
However, funeral staff later unzipped the 20-year-old's body bag only to discover her still breathing with her eyes wide open.
Geoffrey Fieger, a lawyer for the Beauchamp family, told WXYZ that Timesha's godmother, a registered nurse, had told the paramedics that she detected a pulse.
He added: "They were about to embalm her which is most frightening had she not had her eyes open.
"They would have begun draining her blood to be very, very frank about it.
"It’s one of people's worst nightmares to imagine having an ambulance called and instead, sending you off to a funeral home in a body bag.
"The funeral home unzipping the body bag, literally, that’s what happened to Timesha, and seeing her alive with her eyes open."
Miss Beauchamp, who has special needs, is now in a critical condition on a ventilator at a hospital in Detroit.
Paramedics had raced to the young woman's home in the suburb of Southfield where they found her in cardiac arrest.
Southfield Fire Department Chief Johnny Menifee said she wasn't breathing, and the medics performed CPR and other "live reviving methods" for 30 minutes before she was declared dead.
He added: "Given medical readings and the condition of the patient, it was determined at that time that she did not have signs of life.
"Because there was no indication of foul play, as per standard operating procedure, the Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office was contacted and given the medical data.
"The patient was again determined to have expired and the body was released directly to the family to make arrangements with a funeral home of their choosing."
The fire department told ABC 11 that paramedics gave information about the call to a local A&E doctor, who pronounced the woman dead based on those details.
Miss Beauchamp's heartbroken mum, Erica Lattimore, recalled the moment she she received a call from the funeral home telling her that her daughter was still alive to Local4.
“They said, ‘Ma’am, your daughter is on her way to Sinai Grace Hospital. She is breathing. She is alive'.
"This devastated my life. Then she just told me, ‘No, ma’am, your daughter is breathing'.
"I said, ‘What do you mean? What do you mean she’s breathing?’ She said, ‘Ma’am, she’s in the hospital'."
Ms Lattimore said she had asked paramedics if they were "100 per cent sure" that her daughter was "gone" when she was declared dead, and they said "Yes, ma'am, she's gone".
A spokesperson for the funeral home said in a statement: "After receiving clearance from the Oakland County Medical Examiner’s office she was transported to our funeral home. Upon her arrival at the funeral home, our staff confirmed she was breathing and called EMS."
