A teenage boy presumed dead after being bitten by a stray dog, awoke as his family carried him to his funeral.
Kumar Marewad had suffered a high fever after the attack and had been placed on a ventilator at Dharwad Hospital in the Indian state of Karnataka.
Doctors said the teen’s condition was critical and that he was unlikely to survive if life support was removed, prompting his family to make the difficult decision to cease treatment.
Kumar’s brother-in-law Sharanappa Naikar told the Times of India: “We had decided to take Kumar home after doctors told us his chances of survival were bleak once taken off the ventilator.”
Believing him to have passed away, the 17-year-old’s family was transporting him to his home village for his funeral when he suddenly awoke from a “comatose sleep”, the Indian Express reports.
The teen was rushed to a nearby hospital where he is once more on a ventilator and being treated for meningoencephalitis, an infection caused by the dog bite.