WATCH: Ecuadorian Woman Wakes Up In Her Coffin At Her Wake After Being Declared Dead At Hospital

What was supposed to be a day of mourning turned out to be a day of rejoicing for a family in Ecuador. 

Bella Yolanda Montoya Castro, 76, knocked on the inside of her coffin door in the middle of her wake, shocking friends and family in the process. 

Castro, a retired nurse, was declared dead at the hospital after not responding to resuscitation attempts. She had suffered from a possible stroke and cardiopulmonary arrest earlier. 

Castro’s son, Gilberto Barbera, said his mother was unconscious when she was brought to the hospital. Soon after, he was handed her death certificate. 

After about five hours of the wake, Barbera said, they heard sounds coming from the coffin. 

Castro was wrapped in a sheet and began hitting the coffin. When guests looked more closely at her body, they could see she was breathing. 

Despite the amazing news, Castro is still in critical condition, doctors report, and she has been placed under intubation. 

The former nurse was declared dead at the Martín Icaza Hospital in Babahoyo. The hospital and doctors involved in Castro’s case are being investigated. 

This is not the first instance of a person waking up from the “dead” this year.

In February, An 82-year-old woman in New York was declared dead at a nursing home and was found breathing at the funeral home she was sent to. In the same month, a funeral home in Iowa discovered that the “dead” body of a 66-year-old woman a care home sent them was actually alive.