Miracle or Medical Mistake?: Man, 70, ‘Resurrects’ in Benue Mortuary, 30 Hours after ‘Demise’

THE ‘resurrection’ of 70-year-old Amos Otene after he was certified dead by medical practitioners and made to spend over 30 hours in a mortuary in Makurdi, Benue State capital has thrown up a debate.

Doctors, according to a report, at a private hospital in the town had, on Wednesday, August 26, 2015, certified Otene dead at 4.30 a.m. and wheeled him into the mortuary, awaiting instructions from members of the family for embalming.

The report stated that, but for the visit by the son of the ‘deceased’ to confirm the news, the Otene family would have been preparing to inter the agriculturalist who retired from Benue State civil
service three years ago.

The old man had toothache and was rushed to the private clinic, on Tuesday, August 25. A day later, he was certified dead and the doctors whose names were not mentioned in the report could have immediately ordered his embalming, but there was no family member to give the go-ahead. So they wheeled him to the morgue.

30 hours thereafter, Eche Otene, the son of the ‘deceased’, who lives in Lafia, Nasarawa State, came visiting and the hospital was thrown into confusion when the father raised his hand to acknowledge the presence of his son and followed that gesture by sitting up on the mortuary trolley.

The question now is: Was the man sentenced to death by an inexperienced medical team or he actually died but was brought back to life by God?

To the science-inclined minds, Pa Otene could not have died in the first place and the question of resurrection was out of the question. The only explanation, according to a Makurdi-based medical practitioner, Dr. Ameh Edace, is that the retiree could only have been “in a long coma”.

The Medical Director of Rekiya Memorial Hospital, Kaduna, Dr. Bello Mohammed, said that:

“in the history of medicine, there has not been any case of anybody coming back to life after being certified dead.” He added: “If a person is pronounced clinically dead, he remains dead and there is no way he can come back to life, certainly not after 24 hours. On this case in question, the only medical explanation is that the patient was in a long coma.”

To this school of thought therefore, if doctors had certified Pa Otene dead, then the competence of such doctors should be called to question. In other words, something must be amiss with the death certification.

Hand of God

The miracle school of thought, however, is quick to differ from the medical point of view, arguing that miracles are real and what happened in Pa Otene’s case could only have been the hand of God at work.

Benue State Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Archbishop Yimam Orkwar, had not read the story when Vanguard called him, but, as a believer, he described the debate as unnecessary, urging Nigerians and indeed the world at large not to doubt the ability of God to heal or even bring back to life anybody certified dead by man.

According to him, this can only be a miracle of God and not a medical error because it’s not possible for a man erroneously pronounced dead to survive 30 hours in the morgue.

“It must have been God, who had promised to do great miracles in our time, who raised the man to life and at the time he did,” the archbishop submitted.

Warri-based God’s Kingdom Society, GKS, affirmed that stories of dead people coming back to life after they had been certified dead abound with some waking up in the mortuary, others reviving while lying in state, some others just before the grave is covered. The church recalled that several years ago, in England, the ambulance conveying a corpse to the graveyard had an accident and the man rose up.

The church stated:

“In several of these cases, one cannot escape the conclusion that the persons were not yet dead though they were not exhibiting signs of life anymore. Human beings are imperfect. Medical doctors could certify someone dead whereas there is still life in him. Matter of life is in the hands of God. The Bible says that in the hands of God Almighty is the soul (life) of every living thing, and the breaths of all mankind”.

My dearest TILB reader, what is your own belief about this? Was the man sentenced to death by an inexperienced medical team or he actually died but was brought back to life by God?