Chonthirat Sakulkoo was suffering from extremely low blood sugar, which caused her to become so unresponsive that she appeared dead.
Wat Rat Prakongtham Temple/FacebookThe woman, Chonthirat Sakulkoo, was taken to the hospital and stabilized shortly after she was found alive in her coffin.
A 65-year-old woman who was believed to be dead stunned workers at a Thai Buddhist temple when, moments before she was meant to be cremated, she began rattling her coffin and knocking on the lid — clear indicators that she was, in fact, alive.
The shocking incident occurred on Sunday, Nov. 23, at Wat Rat Prakongtham, a temple in Nonthaburi on the outskirts of Bangkok that livestreams its cremation ceremonies as a community service. In the video captured of the incident, temple staff are seen looking bewildered as they prepare for the ritual, only to realize that the woman lying in her coffin in the back of a pick-up truck is moving her arms and head.
Naturally, the abbot immediately stopped the ceremony and called for the woman, identified as Chonthirat Sakulkoo, to be taken to the hospital.
Knocking From Inside The Coffin Alerts Staff
“I was a bit surprised, so I asked them to open the coffin, and everyone was startled,” Pairat Soodthoop, the temple’s general and financial affairs manager, told the Associated Press. “I saw her opening her eyes slightly and knocking on the side of the coffin. She must have been knocking for quite some time.”
Mongkol Sakulkoo, Chonthirat’s brother, told the Bangkok Post that his sister’s health had been declining and that she was bedridden for about two years prior to this incident.
“I’ve cared for my sister for three years. Officials told us she had died,” he said. “All the documents had been issued, so we placed her in a coffin and brought her to the temple for cremation.”
Mongkol told reporters that he had found his sister unresponsive in their home a day earlier, leading relatives and local officials to believe she was dead. Although no death certificate was issued, the village headman did sign documentation for a coffin donation. Thai hospitals, however, require an official death certificate before they can accept bodies for organ donation — which Chonthirat wished to do.
So, to honor his sister’s wish, Mongkol had driven roughly 300 miles to Bangkok after leaving his home at 3 a.m. to take Chonthirat to Chulalongkorn University Hospital.
The hospital declined to take the corpse and instructed Mongkol to obtain an autopsy report. Now worried that his sister’s corpse would begin to decompose, Mongkol instead drove the coffin to Wat Rat Prakongtham temple, which provides free cremation services. As the temple workers were explaining that they, too, needed an official death certificate before they could cremate the body, Chonthirat made everyone aware that she was still quite alive.
Chonthirat Sakulkoo’s Miraculous Recovery
Wat Rat Prakongtham Temple/FacebookTemple staff visiting Chonthirat Sukulkoo in the hospital.
Once temple officials realized that Chonthirat was breathing and moving, they rushed her to the hospital, where doctors stabilized the 65-year-old and determined what had caused her unresponsive condition.
As they explained, Chonthirat had been suffering from extreme hypoglycemia, a critically low level of blood sugar that can result in unresponsiveness that resembles death. By Sunday evening, however, Chonthirat was stable enough to return home.
Soodthoop noted that he had overseen thousands of cremations, but he had never seen someone who had been declared dead regain consciousness.
Authorities clarified that the family, temple, and hospital had all complied with medical and legal standards, though the incident has drawn significant public attention in Thailand for exposing potential holes in end-of-life procedures. The family had received proper documentation to transport a corpse, for instance, but had not gone through a formal hospital or medical process to obtain a declaration of death.
Had everyone involved not responded so quickly, things may very well have turned out differently.
After reading about this nearly premature cremation, go inside the terrifying stories of five people who were buried alive. Or, learn about the death and bizarre cremation of Gram Parsons.
