Declared DEAD — Then Woke Up GASPING!

Wooden casket with white flowers in a funeral home.

A 66-year-old Spanish pensioner named Roger Leitner shocked funeral home workers when he woke up gasping for air inside a body bag just moments before his embalming was scheduled to begin.

Story Snapshot

Roger Leitner suffered two cardiac arrests and was declared dead by paramedics at his Spanish care home
He was transported to a funeral home, placed in a refrigerated body bag, and prepared for embalming
Leitner awakened just before the embalming process, shocking funeral staff who immediately called emergency services
He spent two days hospitalized for hypothermia and low blood pressure before being discharged in stable condition
The incident exposes systematic flaws in death certification protocols, particularly in care home settings

The Shocking Revival That Shouldn’t Have Happened

Roger Leitner’s ordeal began on November 21, 2024, at Residencia 3 de Mayo care home in Reus, Spain. After suffering his first cardiac arrest that morning, paramedics successfully revived him. However, when a second cardiac arrest occurred later that afternoon, the medical team pronounced him dead and his body was transported to Mémora funeral home in La Pobla de Mafumet.

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Funeral workers placed Leitner in a refrigerated body bag and prepared the mortuary table for embalming procedures. The next morning, during routine pre-embalming checks, staff witnessed what they described as a miracle. Leitner began stirring and gasping for air, very much alive despite spending nearly 24 hours in a sealed body bag.

Medical Errors in Spain’s Overwhelmed Care System

This terrifying near-miss reveals deep cracks in Spain’s elder care infrastructure. The country faces an aging crisis, with 20% of its population over 65 and care homes struggling with 15% vacancy rates among medical staff. Spanish law requires two doctors to certify death, yet paramedics handled Leitner’s initial declaration, highlighting dangerous shortcuts in overwhelmed facilities.

Dr. Manel Castells from the Spanish Society of Intensive Care explained that hypothermia below 28°C can mimic death by slowing metabolism to imperceptible levels. Without proper ECG monitoring, even experienced medical professionals can mistake severely hypothermic patients for deceased. Leitner’s case perfectly illustrates this dangerous diagnostic gap that continues to plague emergency medicine worldwide.

A Pattern of Premature Death Declarations

Leitner’s experience joins a disturbing global pattern of premature death declarations. In 2023, Carlos Camejo woke up during his own autopsy in Mexico. The previous year, Bella Montoya revived in her coffin after six hours in Ecuador. Spain itself witnessed Ada Llanes, 91, awakening in her coffin in 2014. The World Health Organization estimates approximately 1 in 1,000 “apparent deaths” are misdiagnosed annually.

These cases expose a fundamental problem in modern medicine’s approach to death verification. Professor Julie Kropf, a forensic pathology expert in the UK, notes that non-hospital death declarations carry a 1-2% error rate. This seemingly small percentage translates to hundreds of potentially living people being processed as corpses each year across developed nations.

Systematic Changes Fall Short of Real Solutions

Following Leitner’s revival, Catalan health authorities launched an investigation that concluded with the predictable finding of “human error due to hypothermia masking vital signs.” By February 2025, officials mandated enhanced training and introduced new guidelines for hypothermic cases. However, these bureaucratic responses miss the deeper issue of understaffed facilities cutting corners on life-and-death procedures.

The funeral industry responded with minor protocol adjustments, and insurance premiums increased by 5% across Spain’s funeral sector. Meanwhile, public trust in elder care plummeted 15% according to El País polling. Leitner himself recovered fully and returned to normal life in Reus, but sought €10,000 in compensation for his traumatic ordeal through administrative channels rather than pursuing litigation.