‘I was a bit surprised’: Temple staff hears faint knocking coming from coffin, what they found inside left everyone startled

A 65-year-old woman in Thailand shocked temple workers when she started moving inside her coffin just moments before her cremation. The incredible incident happened at Wat Rat Prakhong Tham, a Buddhist temple in the Nonthaburi area near Bangkok. The temple shared a video on Facebook showing the unbelievable moment.

According to AP News, you can see the woman lying in a white coffin in the back of a pickup truck in the video. She was slightly moving her head and arms, which completely shocked the staff who were getting ready for the service. The woman’s brother had driven her 500 kilometers, which is about 300 miles, all the way from Phitsanulok province just for the cremation.

The first sign that something was wrong came when the temple’s manager, Pairat Soodthoop, was talking with the brother about the service. Pairat said that he heard a faint knock coming from the coffin. He asked them to open it right away, and everyone was absolutely stunned by what they saw.

This rescue came just in time

“I was a bit surprised, so I asked them to open the coffin, and everyone was startled,” Pairat said. He described seeing her opening her eyes slightly and knocking on the side of the coffin. She must have been knocking for quite some time. It’s hard to imagine how shocked they must have felt seeing someone they thought was dead trying to get their attention.

So how did this happen? According to Pairat, the brother explained that his sister had been bedridden for about two years. Her health had gotten worse recently, and she had become unresponsive. Most importantly, she appeared to have stopped breathing two days before the brother started the long drive to Bangkok.

Believing she had died, the brother placed her in the coffin. But the brother’s original plan wasn’t even cremation. The woman had previously said she wanted to donate her organs, so the brother first drove to a hospital in Bangkok hoping to make that happen. This isn’t the first time temples have made headlines recently, as a Chinese mountain temple burned down due to a tourist’s careless mistake.

Unfortunately, that plan hit a major problem. Pairat confirmed that the hospital refused to accept the brother’s offer because he didn’t have an official death certificate. This is an important document you need for almost anything involving a death. After the hospital refused, the brother went to the temple instead.

Wat Rat Prakhong Tham offers a free cremation service, which is why he brought his sister there on a Sunday. However, the temple also had to turn him away because of the missing death certificate. The temple manager was explaining to the brother how to get the necessary death certificate when they heard the faint knocking from the coffin. While shocking events happen worldwide, including when Trump shared a bizarre AI video at a White House dinner, this situation was truly life-or-death.

After realizing the woman was alive, the staff quickly checked her condition and immediately sent her to a nearby hospital for proper medical care. This is such a great ending to what was almost a truly terrible situation. The temple’s abbot stepped up in a big way and confirmed that the temple would cover all of the woman’s medical expenses. That’s an amazing move, making sure she gets the care she needs after such a scary experience.