In a bizzare incident on Tuesday, dead body of a 26-year-old man was referred to the central emergency room of state-run Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences from the mortuary after doctors going to conduct a post-mortem found him alive.

The 26-year-old, however, passed away during treatment.

According to hospital sources at RIMS, the dead body of Jitendra Oraon, a resident of Kharta village under Kairo police station limits in Lohardaga district, was brought to the hospital for post-mortem after doctors at community health centre in Chanho declared him brought dead. However, soon after technicians, who were about to begin the autopsy, saw his heart beating, they immediately transferred him to central emergency ward for a review.

SIkandar Oraon, younger brother of deceased, said: “My brother had gone to remove a tent structure our village around 7am in the morning where he suffered an electric shock and fell unconscious. We immediately shifted him to Chanho community health centre (CHC) where doctors declared him brought dead, and we were sent to RIMS for an autopsy.”

Sikandar added: “We arrived at RIMS around 1pm. Minutes after my brother was taken to the mortuary, the staff directed his body to be shifted to the emergency ward as he was still alive. He passed away during treatment at the emergency centre and the duty doctors said that if he had arrived a bit early, they would have saved him.”

Sikandar and other family members have accused the doctors of CHC Chanho of negligence. “If the doctors at Chanho had referred my brother to RIMS, he could have been alive. We wasted our time considering that my brother is dead. But he was alive for more than five hours,” said an emotional Sikandar.

Chanho police too had forwarded a request to RIMS for conducting an autopsy around 11.45am based on the doctors report after they declared him dead.

When contacted, station in-charge of Chanho police station Jaleshwar Oraon said: “Soon after we received declaration from CHC for tranferring the body for an autopsy, I forwarded it based on doctors' findings.”

Upon being inquired, medical officer of CHC Chanho Dr Namita Toppo who had examined the patient said: “The patient was brought to us in an unconscious state and his pupils were dilated and neither the pulse nor the heart beat could be detected. The family members were pressuring us to refer the patient to RIMS for treatment, but if a patient has already passed away, how can we refer him? Even when the police arrived to forward the report, the body of the patient was examined twice. There was no sign of life and that is why he was referred for autopsy.”

Meanwhile, RIMS sources confirmed that the patient was shifted to emergency as doctors detected signs of life but as the patient was left without any medical attention for the last five hours, he passed away soon after reaching emergency.