The baby boy who was found breathing in his coffin, after being declared dead by staff at the hospital where he was born, has now truly lost his fight for life.
Born 4 months prematurely and weighing only 17.6oz (500g) the young boy, named Angel Salvador by his parents, always faced a struggle to survive. And it was a struggle that staff at a hospital in Asuncion, capital of Paraquay, thought that he had lost not long after he was born.
But when Angel Salvador was found to still be breathing, when his father Jose Alvarenga lifted the lid of the coffin in which the baby had been placed, it appeared that a miracle had happened.
The infant was rushed back to the hospital where he had previously been pronounced dead and was placed in the intensive care unit.
As the
BBC and
Blippitt.com both report the hospital later admitted that Angel Salvador's vital signs had not been adequately checked at the time he was born, hence the declaration of his death. Dr. Ernesto Weber, the hospital's head of pediatrics, explained what had happened:
Initially, the baby didn’t move, he practically didn’t have any respiratory reflexes, nor did we hear a heartbeat and, as a result, we declared a premature fetus of 24 weeks dead
Alas in the end a miracle was not to be and Angel Salvador, his organs too weak to keep him alive, has now died.
