An Iowa woman has been found breathing inside a body bag at a funeral home hours after being declared dead.
Glen Oaks Alzheimer's Special Care Center, in the state capital Des Moines, has been fined $US10,000 ($14,442) after staff pronounced the 66-year-old woman dead last month.
Two staff at the centre checked the woman for vital signs before calling the funeral home.
However, after the woman was transported to Ankeny Funeral Home and Crematory, 20 minutes away, staff there "unzipped the bag and observed [the woman's] chest moving and she gasped for air", according to a report by the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals (DIA).
The woman was returned to the hospice centre, but did not regain consciousness and died two days later with family by her side.
She had been admitted on December 28 suffering dementia, anxiety and depression.
In its citation, the DIA details how staff had watched the woman's condition deteriorate overnight and into the morning of January 3.
Family notified of 'death'
At 5:05am local time, she was noted to have "mottling" of her extremities and was "mouth breathing".
Within an hour though, two staff members were unable to find a pulse or detect signs of breathing, although the woman's eyes were open.
Her time of death was logged as 6am, with her family notified and the funeral home called.
The funeral director arrived at 7:38am and, with the help of a third staff member from the home, placed the woman in a cloth bag on a gurney and zipped it shut.
Both told DIA they there were no signs of life.
At 8:26am a staff member at the funeral home unzipped the bag to find the woman breathing.
She was taken back to the hospice centre, where she died on January 5.
ABC
