A homeless Indian man who had been pronounced dead
woke up on an autopsy table, shocking hospital staff who
were about to begin a post-mortem, authorities said
Tuesday.
Police in Mumbai said they found the man, who
has not been named, unconscious and suffering
from multiple infections on Sunday morning
and took him to the local hospital.
A doctor at the Lokmanya Tilak Municipal
General Hospital certified the man as dead and
sent the body for autopsy, Ashok Dudhe,
Mumbai Police deputy commissioner told AFP.
“As the autopsy was about to begin, the man
awoke triggering chaos after which the doctors
rushed to the room. Then they snatched the
death certificate from my staff and tore it up,”
Dudhe said.
Hospital dean Dr Suleman Merchant said the
police forced the error by asking doctors to
examine the man on the road outside the
hospital, because they were busy with security
arrangements for a visit by Prime Minister
Narendra Modi.
“They forced my doctor to examine the patient
on the roadside as they wanted to rush back to
the prime minister’s security duty,” Merchant
said.
“Had the police allowed my staff to take the
man indoors, they might have been able to do a
better job,” he said.
The man is being treated in the hospital for
severe malnutrition, suspected alcoholism and
substance abuse, Merchant said.
“He is delirious still and we are trying to
stabilise him. Let’s hope the damage from his
past can be tackled,” the dean said.
Police officer Dudhe called the suggestion police
were responsible for the mix-up “ridiculous”
and said the hospital was “trying to cover up
their negligence”.
The police have finished an internal enquiry into
the incident and a report has been sent to the
commissioner’s office, he added.
Mumbai’s police are regularly faced with
unclaimed dead bodies and media reports have
suggested mortuaries are running out of space
to hold the corpses.
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