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Dr Gérald Kierzek (Medical Director of Doctissimo)
A 68-year-old woman was declared dead by the Samu doctor in Perpignan, after suffering a heart attack. While his death certificate was pronounced, his relatives noticed that the victim was still breathing. How to explain this phenomenon ? Dr. Gérald Kierzek, emergency physician and medical director of Doctissimo, gives us his explanations.
This type of story surprises every time. A 68-year-old woman suffered a heart attack on June 12 in Perpignan. Alerted, the Samu went to the victim’s bedside and declared him dead after several attempts at resuscitation remained in vain.
Half an hour later, her loved ones noticed that she was still breathing.
While her loved ones learn of her death from the Samu doctor and gather around the old woman, they notice that she is still breathing. Called back, the emergency services noticed the same thing and decided to transfer the patient as an absolute emergency to the city’s hospital center where she finally died a few days later, due to a new heart attack.
According to our colleagues at Actu.fr who report this story, an internal investigation “would have been opened by the hospital center, but that the establishment did not wish to comment on the subject“.
In the case of this patient, it could be the phenomenon of Lazarus, which is “a biblical reference”. Indeed, according to the Gospels, Jesus resurrects a man named Lazarus after explaining that he was only “asleep”. This is why we speak of the Lazarus phenomenon to describe this curious medical way for a person to “return to life”.
Questioned, Dr Gérald Kierzek, emergency doctor and medical director of Doctissimo, gives us his insight. “There is no certainty test allowing us to say that someone is dead. There is no additional test, such as an X-ray or a blood testto make this diagnosis… As a doctor, the diagnosis is based on a set of clues: we examine the patient, we give him a test electrocardiogramwe take his temperature, we stimulate him…
But in cases of profound bradycardia (which is characterized by heartbeat so low that the pulse may appear absent), from hypothermia or from taking medication for example, the report may be distorted.. He nevertheless specifies that these are “extremely rare cases”.
These unusual cases of the dead coming back to life can be explained by what is called Lazarus syndrome. Other cases have been reported in the media: the case at the end of January, still in India, of an 80-year-old man who woke up in the ambulance taking him to his cremation site; in October 2023, a 50-year-old English patient who woke up in hospital after being declared dead by paramedics; in April 2022, a garbage collector from Neuilly-sur-Marne was declared dead by the Samu before waking up while he was in a body bag…
Slide: Diseases fatal in less than 24 hours