The Vanguard reports a quite interesting story today. 70-year-old Amos Otene who was certified dead by medical practitioners and made to spend over 30 hours in a mortuary in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, came back to life by some stroke of a miracle.
Read excerpts from the story below:
Doctors, according to a report, at a private hospital in the town had, on Wednesday, August 26, 2015, certified Otene dead at 4.30 a.m. and wheeled him into the mortuary, awaiting instructions from members of the family for embalming.
The report stated that, but for the visit by the son of the ‘deceased’ to confirm the news, the Otene family would have been preparing to inter the agriculturalist who retired from Benue State civil service three years ago. The old man had toothache and was rushed to the private clinic, on Tuesday, August 25. A day later, he was certified dead and the doctors whose names were not mentioned in the report could have immediately ordered his embalming, but there was no family member to give the go-ahead. So they wheeled him to the morgue.
30 hours thereafter, Eche Otene, the son of the ‘deceased’, who lives in Lafia, Nasarawa State, came visiting and the hospital was thrown into confusion when the father raised his hand to acknowledge the presence of his son and followed that gesture by sitting up on the mortuary trolley.
The question now is: Was the man sentenced to death by an inexperienced medical team or he actually died but was brought back to life by God?
To the science-inclined minds, Pa Otene could not have died in the first place and the question of resurrection was out of the question. The only explanation, according to a Makurdi-based medical practitioner, Dr. Ameh Edace, is that the retiree could only have been “in a long coma”.
The Medical Director of Rekiya Memorial Hospital, Kaduna, Dr. Bello Mohammed, said that “in the history of medicine, there has not been any case of anybody coming back to life after being certified dead.” He added: “If a person is pronounced clinically dead, he remains dead and there is no way he can come back to life, certainly not after 24 hours. On this case in question, the only medical explanation is that the patient was in a long coma.”
To this school of thought therefore, if doctors had certified Pa Otene dead, then the competence of such doctors should be called to question. In other words, something must be amiss with the death certification.
Hand of God
The miracle school of thought, however, is quick to differ from the medical point of view, arguing that miracles are real and what happened in Pa Otene’s case could only have been the hand of God at work. Benue State Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Archbishop Yimam Orkwar, had not read the story when we called him, but, as a believer, he described the debate as unnecessary, urging Nigerians and indeed the world at large not to doubt the ability of God to heal or even bring back to life anybody certified dead by man.
According to him, this can only be a miracle of God and not a medical error because it’s not possible for a man erroneously pronounced dead to survive 30 hours in the morgue. “It must have been God, who had promised to do great miracles in our time, who raised the man to life and at the time he did,” the archbishop submitted.
Warri-based God’s Kingdom Society, GKS, affirmed that stories of dead people coming back to life after they had been certified dead abound with some waking up in the mortuary, others reviving while lying in state, some others just before the grave is covered. The church recalled that several years ago, in England, the ambulance conveying a corpse to the graveyard had an accident and the man rose up.
The church stated: “In several of these cases, one cannot escape the conclusion that the persons were not yet dead though they were not exhibiting signs of life anymore. Human beings are imperfect. Medical doctors could certify someone dead whereas there is still life in him. Matter of life is in the hands of God. The Bible says that in the hands of God Almighty is the soul (life) of every living thing, and the breaths of all mankind”.
The GKS’s Publicity Secretary, Brother Benedict Hart, argued that despite the advances made in science, it is only God who knows all there is to know about life. Hart went on: “The medical people have their limitations. Someone could still have life in him whereas doctors could have certified him dead, going by what the books say or what they have been taught.
“Another point is that it is a very easy thing for God to raise people back to life to show man that He exists and that He is the Owner of life. Such miracle will move people to fear Him and praise His name. God told Pharoah: `And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.’ (Exodus 9:16)
“The second book of Kings has the record of casket bearers who, on seeing a band of marauders, abandoned the body they were carrying. Incidentally, the corpse fell into the burial place of Elisha and the man `revived, and stood up on his feet’ (2 Kings 13:21). This was a clear case of God doing a miracle to revive the belief of the people in His power over life and death. Death is one of the ways God instils in man the somber reality that he is mortal; that, no matter how powerful a man may be, he is still subject to death. He alone has power to bring a man from dead condition back to life. Some of the cases of those who came back to life fall into this category; they had actually died but were raised by the Almighty, just to make the point about the infinitude of His power and pointedly declare to man his limitations.
“Even if someone had been in the mortuary for four days, and God wants to make a statement by bringing him back to life, nothing with Him is impossible (Jeremiah 32:27, 17). How many days was Lazarus in the grave before Jesus Christ brought him back to life? In fact, Christ told Martha, `…I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25).
What do you think?
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