A cremation ceremony outside Bangkok took a shocking turn when a woman believed to be dead was discovered alive inside her coffin moments before she was to be burned.

Pairat Soodthoop, general manager of the Wat Rat Prakhong Tham temple, said he was startled when he heard a faint knocking from inside the coffin as staff prepared for the ceremony. He ordered the lid opened and saw the 65-year-old woman “opening her eyes slightly and knocking on the side of the coffin.”

“She must have been knocking for quite some time,” Soodthoop told the Associated Press.

The woman’s brother had arrived at the temple believing she was dead, claiming local officials informed him of her passing. But the temple noted he did not have an official death certificate. As staff attempted to explain how to obtain one, the faint knocking began.

The temple’s abbot immediately ordered that the woman be transported to a hospital. A doctor later determined she was suffering from severe hypoglycaemia — a dangerous drop in blood sugar that can mimic deathlike symptoms. Medical staff ruled out cardiac arrest or respiratory failure.

The woman had been bedridden for two years, according to her brother. When her condition worsened over the weekend and she appeared to stop breathing, the family assumed she had died. They then traveled nearly 500 kilometers from Phitsanulok province to Bangkok for the cremation.

Instead, they witnessed a miracle — and a near miss — as the woman came back to life just in time.