A 74-year-old woman declared dead at a nursing home was found alive two hours later by funeral home employees attending to what they believed were her remains, a Nebraska sheriff’s official said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The employees of the Lincoln funeral home called 911, and the woman was taken to a hospital alive, where she remained Monday, Lancaster County Chief Sheriff\u2019s Deputy Ben Houchin said at a news conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The woman’s condition was unavailable. Houchin identified her as Constance Glantz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a very unusual case. I\u2019ve been doing this 31 years, and nothing like this has ever gotten to this point before,” Houchin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Houchin said a Lincoln-area nursing home where Glantz was receiving end-of-life care declared her dead about 9:44 a.m., with a doctor prepared to sign her death certificate. It wasn’t clear whether that happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was taken to the funeral home, where employees called 911 about 11:43 a.m., a Lincoln Fire & Rescue spokeswoman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Houchin described the scene as workers at the funeral home discovered the woman was alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Employee was placing Constance Glantz onto a table to start their process,” he said. “An employee noticed that she was still breathing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said that an investigation was underway but that so far there are no indications that the nursing home acted with malice in declaring Glantz dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“At this point, we have not been able to find any criminal intent by the nursing home, but the investigation is ongoing,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n