It was a surprise for the wife of the 65-year-old man, who went missing from a COVID-19 unit in the hospital.
Preparing one's heart after losing someone we love is a difficult journey. We have to tell ourselves that the person we loved is no longer going to come back, but one woman experienced a miracle. She got her partner back even after she gave him a funeral. After all, sometimes, miracles do happen.
In December 2020, an elderly woman, Victoria Sarmiento, spent several days looking for her husband Julio, 65, when she didn't return home. Eventually, the woman took his identity documents to the local hospital in El Carmen, Honduras, where she was told her he recently died from Coronavirus, reported Daily Mail. She was then taken to the morgue at Hospital de Occidente. She recognized him and she was then allowed to take his body for burial.
The grieving wife hired funeral directors to transfer her husband's body 30 miles from the hospital to her rural village in the country's western municipality of San Nicolas, Copan. Their distraught relatives held a wake for him the night his body arrived. No expense was spared; the cost of the ceremony was 10,500 lempiras ($435).
Grieving wife who buried ‘husband’ stunned when he turns up alive 4 days after funeral https://t.co/CDyOwrFSkZ
— Sleek Gist (@Sleek_Gist) January 8, 2021
However, she was shocked when Julio came home four days later when she was still in mourning. He had reportedly been found injured in a field in the neighboring municipality of Trinidad. He reportedly went for a walk but fell down and couldn't get up. He stayed there for many days without a drop of water or a morsel of food.
"That wasn't my husband who died, because I have my husband here now. I recognized him. I would like them to give me back some of what I spent because they gave me the body of someone I don't know. The authorities at the morgue should have properly examined him to see if it was really him," she told Hondura's LaPrensa newspaper, as per Mirror UK.
Meanwhile, the hospital said that the unidentified man she buried had reached the hospital in a serious condition with COVID-19 on December 27, and passed away a few hours later.
The hospital is now blaming the wife for making a mistake. "The instruction of the Municipal Emergency Committee is to leave a patient who dies from Covid in cold rooms for six days in case a family member appears. Then the wife appears, bringing his identity card, recognizes him, and says he's her husband," said the hospital's director, Juan Carlos Cardona.
He further added that security protocols were followed and the only reason the body was released was since she said it was her husband Julio. They further added that one of her children had called them since they had doubts after opening the coffin on the day of the funeral. Regardless, they proceeded with the ceremony.
"The logical thing was to bring the body back so we could investigate. But later the relatives called back and said he was the right person after all and they were going to bury him. We have everything documented. We even have an apology from one of the children, if this becomes a lawsuit," he added.
References:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/grieving-wife-who-buried-husband-23284869
