Story Archive

Cold, but Not That Cold

When Janina Kolkiewicz woke up, reports say, she said she was cold. But she wasn’t cold the way her doctor expected her to be cold. “If I had had doubts, I would have called the ambulance, done an electrocardiogram, but I was sure that the patient was dead,” said the doctor, identified only as “Dr. Wieslawa C.” Kolkiewicz’s relatives thought the 91-year-old wasn’t breathing, so they summoned the doctor, who found “no basic life functions.” But hours later in the morgue, Kolkeiewicz, of Ostrow Lubelski, Poland, was functioning enough to ask for tea. Dr. C., on the other hand, says she’s been in “deep shock” since hearing she’d sent a living woman to the morgue. Prosecutors are considering whether the doctor endangered Kolkiewicz’s health. Meanwhile, they’re calling for her legal resurrection — her death certificate terminated her pension and other benefits. (AC/AP) ...Not recognizing she’s alive would be ...cold.