A woman pronounced "very certainly clinically dead" at
a French hospital woke up hours later after her sons refused to
turn off her life-support system, medics and the woman said.
Doctors were preparing cancer patient Lydie Paillard, 60, for a
chemotherapy session when she passed out, the director of the
Bordeaux Rive Droite private hospital Yves Noel told AFP on
Wednesday.
A doctor managed to resuscitate her and put her on a ventilator
but then, having consulted other doctors, called Paillard's sons to
break the news that their mother was "very certainly clinically
dead".
But her sons would not turn off the respirator and she was then
transferred to the university hospital of the southwestern French
city where a scan revealed that she was in fact not brain dead,
Noel said.
"It's a kind of miracle," he said of Paillard, who woke up after
14 hours. He said that the doctor who resuscitated her had
committed a communication error not a medical one as "he saved her
life."
"All I remember is that I felt unwell after receiving an
injection to prevent me vomiting," Paillard told AFP by telephone
from hospital where she said she felt "more tired than usual" after
her ordeal.
"My sons, whom I saw yesterday, explained to me that the
hospital wanted to turn off the life support system because it was
over and as they refused, I was taken to the university
hospital.
"I haven't really realised what's happened but I think my three
sons are the most shocked."
The hospital's management said it would suggest the family meet
the medical team responsible for Paillard to discuss the
"communication problem."