Living for only 26 more hours:Daily Star

She survived for nearly 26 hours after she had been declared dead, leaving everyone in the dark about her identity. The woman, believed to be around 45, breathed her last at 4:00pm yesterday at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Around 2:00pm on Thursday, a doctor of the DMCH had declared her dead and issued a death certificate. In a bizarre turn of events, however, she moved her hands and legs three
hours later while being taken to the hospital morgue for an autopsy. Confirming the woman's death, Dr Mushfiqur Rahman, the hospital's deputy director, told The Daily Star that a four-member committee led by Prof Enamul Karim of the medicine department was formed to investigate Thursday's incident. "The committee has been asked to submit its report within three working days," he said. On Thursday, an honorary female doctor had declared the woman dead when she was found to have no heartbeat, physical movement and blood pressure. "In preliminary investigation, we came to know that the doctor reached her decision through casual testing methods without using an ECG machine though the building has three ECG machines," Mushfiqur explained. Advertisement "We will take action against the doctor following submission of the investigation team's report," he added.  The woman, who was undergoing treatment on the seventh floor of the hospital's new building, had no attendants and was not provided with proper treatment other than an intravenous saline drip and some injections, patients in her ward alleged. After she moved her limbs, generating quite a buss in and around the hospital, she was hurriedly shifted to a bed at Ward No-802. "She did not receive any lab test because of her not having an attendant who usually arranges a test. We suggested some tests on her on that night," doctors at the ward told The Daily Star. DMCH sources said the woman, who was suffering from Malnutrition, was found lying on the footpath when a drive was being carried out on Tuesday to evict illegal, roadside shops adjacent to the emergency unit of the hospital. The body was sent to the DMCH morgue for an autopsy. Assistant sub-inspector Haider Ali of DMCH police camp said no one came to claim the body till 7:00pm yesterday.