True Stories #385 - A Change of Heart

49-year-old Fagilyu Mukhametzyanov died of a heart attack. Or did she?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Seth Andrews, and what you're about to hear is
a true story. Massive coronary myocardial infarction heart attack. Blood
flow to the heart muscle is blocked, preventing the heart

(00:23):
from getting necessary oxygen. The body seizes, the heart flutters, spasms,
and even stops. This is what happened in June of
twenty eleven to a forty nine year old Russian woman.
Fagiliu Mukametsienov, had been at home when she suddenly experienced

(00:44):
severe pain in her chest. She collapsed to the floor.
She was immediately rushed to a hospital in Kazan and
treated for a massive heart attack, but to no avail.
Doctors would soon cover her and go into the hallway
and inform her husband, Fajial, that his wife was dead. Unsurprisingly,

(01:09):
the man was devastated. The only thing left to do
after that was to arrange the funeral, which would happen quickly.
Family members were notified, a venue was secured, and two
days after that terrible day, loved ones gathered to pay
tribute and grieve and remember. Fagilu Mukamesianov was lying there

(01:33):
in the casket in full view as people stepped past.
As the cliche goes, she looked peaceful, like she was
sleeping with those closed eyes, except that the eyes weren't closed.
The eyelids were starting to flutter. And then the eyes opened,

(01:54):
and a suddenly not dead woman regained consciousness to realize
she was lying in her own casket with mourners all
around her. Imagine it, the dead had become undead while
apparently two days before her heart had not fully stopped.

(02:18):
Doctors had mistakenly believed that the heart attack had killed her,
but somehow there was still an almost indiscernible bit of
life left in her body. She was barely alive when
her husband was told the news that she was dead.
She was barely alive when she was taken to the morgue.

(02:38):
She was barely alive when she was prepped for the service,
and she was barely alive when her body was laid
in the caskets and displayed in a room filled with
grieving loved ones. In a scenario both nightmare and miracle,
the newly conscious Fagiliu started screaming at the top of

(03:00):
her lungs, very much alive. Her shocked husband realized what
had happened. He immediately grabbed her and rushed her back
to the hospital, where she died a second time of shock.
This woman had lived as dead for two days, but

(03:23):
after regaining consciousness at her own funeral and being returned
to the emergency room for a second time, this time
she lasted in the intensive care room for only twelve minutes.
There's a famous verse in the ninth chapter of Hebrews
which says it was appointed unto men once to die.

(03:47):
Yet for this forty nine year old Russian woman, a
date with death would arrive twice, leaving the rest of
us to try to imagine what it must be like.
What it must be like to fall unconscious and awake
in a casket. What would it be like to hear
our own funeral songs and watch family and friends weeping

(04:10):
over our bodies as we gaze at them with open eyes.
I suppose it could have been worse. Imagine if she
had woken up in a crematorium. And that's a true story.

(04:33):
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