A grieving family was left stunned after reportedly discovering that their 15-year-old daughter was still alive inside her coffin during her own wake in Guatemala, according to local media.
The shocking ordeal has raised questions about how the teenager came to be treated as dead, only for relatives to reportedly discover signs of life as they gathered to mourn her. Her father says he found no pulse or breathing on the road and never took her to a hospital; no medical death certificate was issued.
The teenager, identified as Yuleidy Ixcotoyac, is said to have regained consciousness October 10, approximately eight hours after her father believed she had died in the rural village of El Jocote.
The drama began when Yuleidy experienced severe chest pain while her father, Abraham Ixcotoyac, an evangelical pastor, was driving her to a medical center.
The teenager suddenly lost consciousness, prompting her father to pull over and check her breathing and pulse.
Unable to detect either, Abraham concluded his daughter had died and returned home without taking her to a hospital.
However, the family's grief turned to disbelief when Yuleidy's mother noticed something extraordinary while leaning over her daughter's coffin.
"I kept saying she was alive; she wasn't dead," her mother, Lesbia de Ríos, said. "When I was crying on top of her casket, we opened the window and she was moving, she was waking up and suddenly she sat up."
Video footage of the chaotic scene quickly circulated online.
Guatemala's Public Ministry said it opened an investigation on its own initiative on October 11 into how the family came to hold a wake without a medical death certificate. No criminal responsibility has been reported. The girl is being evaluated at a private hospital, and no diagnosis has been released.
Yuleidy later recalled experiencing intense chest pain shortly before losing consciousness.
"My heart started hurting really badly; it felt heavy and then I blacked out, like I fainted," the teenager explained.
The teenager credited divine intervention for her survival.
People at the wake shouted that a miracle had occurred, Prensa Libre reported.