‘DEATH IS AN INEXACT SCIENCE’

DIAGNOSING death can be an ‘inexact science’, according to Tony Calland, chairman of the British Medical Association’s medical ethics committee.

He said: ‘Death is like appendicitis – it is one of the easiest and most difficult conditions to diagnose. You are always going to get bizarre cases.’

He added it was not unheard of for a pathologist to start a post-mortem examination ‘and then the patient swallows’.

There have been several cases around the world of people being declared dead by doctors – and then apparently coming back to life.

Earlier this year, mourners in Egypt cheered when the ‘dead’ body they were burying woke up. Hamdi Hafez al-Nubi, a 28- year-old waiter, had been declared dead after suffering a heart attack at work.

His body was being prepared for burial when another doctor, sent to sign his death certificate, discovered he was still warm and managed to revive him.

And in April a 95-year-old Chinese woman climbed out of her own coffin six days after she was declared dead following a fall.

Under Chinese tradition, Li Xiufeng was placed in a coffin kept in her house so friends and relatives could pay their respects. But the day before the funeral, neighbours found an empty coffin and later discovered her in the kitchen cooking.

In Tasleem Rafiq’s case, it appears that she had a pulse all along, but that it became so faint that it was undetectable.