‘Dead’ Child Sat Up, Asked For Water, Died Again, Family Says

Occasionally, we come across stories where a child or baby believed to be dead is found by a parent to be barely clinging to life, is revived, and everything turns out better than expected- such as the case earlier this year where a mom insistent on viewing her baby’s body in a morgue discovered the frost-covered tot alive and just a tiny bit cold where she lay in a fridge.

Now there is a report out of Brazil from a grieving family who says their son, declared dead, sat up during his wake and asked for a cup of water- but the details are a bit hazier and rely solely on eyewitness reports detailing the somewhat unlikely incident.

The story begins with the sickness and resultant death of two-year-old boy Kelvin Santos at Aberlardo Santos Hospital in Belem, northern Brazil. Santos died on Friday, and his parents received his body in a plastic bag, taking their young son home to begin his wake.

And according to reports by family, wake he did. An hour before his scheduled burial Saturday, Santos’ family reports an eerie and unexplainable event. An Aussie news site quotes Kelvin’s dad as recounting that the toddler sat up and asked for a drink:

“…witnesses claim the boy sat up in his coffin and said to his father Antonio, ‘Daddy, can I have some water?’

“Mr. Santos said at that point ‘everybody started to scream, we couldn’t believe our eyes… Then we thought a miracle had taken place and our boy had come back to life.'”

However, the miracle was not to be. Kelvin Santos then is said to have returned to lifelessness, and his family is seeking and explanation for the bizarre occurrence. Doctors re-examined the child, declared him dead again, and he was buried at 5PM Saturday.