Nebraska woman declared dead, found alive in funeral home

“This is a very unusual case,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for 31 years and it’s never gotten this far.”

Her family has been notified, Houchin said.

Glantz was being cared for at a nursing home in Waverly, a suburb of Lincoln, Houchin said, adding that there is no inquest when “the death of a patient is expected.”

A doctor at the Waverly nursing home examined Glantz “over the past seven days” and was willing to sign her death certificate, Houchin said. He added that there was nothing suspicious about the circumstances, but the investigation into the incident is ongoing.

The nursing home and funeral home did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Although rare, there have been several recent incidents where people have been wrongly declared dead. Last year in Iowa, a woman who had been presumed dead and placed in a body bag later woke up in a funeral home; her hospice facility was fined $10,000 for wrongly declaring her dead. In 2022, two Denver firefighters were disciplined for failing to check on a woman who had been declared dead by a police officer—she was actually alive.

Last year, mourners in Ecuador were horrified to discover a woman knocking on the floor of her coffin just hours after she was pronounced dead.

In one case, a 66-year-old Florida man was not found to be breathing until 20 minutes after his death was diagnosed. His daughter told the Washington Post that doctors initially made the diagnosis without proper testing.

In Nebraska, Glantz’s life was discovered when an employee at the Lincoln funeral home noticed her breathing after she was laid on a table. The employee immediately called 911, Houchin said.

“I’m sure nursing homes and everyone else will look at what happened and I’m sure they will look to see if new protocols need to be put in place or if they were all followed,” Houchin said.