A 15-year-old Guatemalan girl has given her loved ones the shock of their lives after she sat up in her coffin during her funeral – hours after being declared dead.
Yuleidy Ixcotoyac is understood to have lost consciousness while her father was driving her to a medical centre in Guatemala in the early hours of Saturday.
Her father Abraham, an evangelical pastor, stopped the car to check whether she was breathing and to his horror discovered she had no pulse and had died.
Without a doctor examining the teen or issuing a death certificate, her family bought a coffin and returned home with the ‘body’ to begin the wake.
WATCH THE VIRAL FOOTAGE IN THE VIDEO PLAYER ABOVE
As mourners gathered at the house in El Jocote for the teen’s funeral later that same day, her mother Lesvia Ríos, was splayed over the coffin in tears when she suddenly felt movement inside.
To her sheer disbelief – her daughter was alive – opening her eyes and sitting upright as the lid of the coffin was quickly removed.
“I kept saying she was alive that she wasn’t dead,” Ms Ríos told local media.
“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.”
Mourners who couldn’t quite believe the turn the day had taken, offered the teen some water as she was helped out of the coffin, with the moment filmed and shared online where its since it gone viral.
Described the moments before she collapsed, the schoolgirl told reporters it was a ‘miracle’ she was alive.
“My heart started hurting really badly; it felt heavy and then I blacked out, like I fainted,” Ms Ixcotoyac explained.
“I have no way to thank God for everything he has done in my life. It was a miracle.”
Also speaking to local reporters, her father confirmed that he had not taken his daughter to the medical clinic after she lost conciousness.
“I pulled over, parked my car and went to her and saw the situation that she had simply ceased to exist, she died on the way,” he said.
“I saw that she was no longer breathing and I couldn’t feel her pulse on her wrists. It was a very difficult situation for me. She did not go to hospital.”
Ms Ixcotoyac is understood to be recovering at home, with Guatemalan health authorities not commenting on the bizarre episode.