LARGE CROWDS gathered outside Madden's Funeral Parlour and the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH), next door, in downtown Kingston yesterday, trying to find out what had really happened to a woman who was rumoured to have died twice.
Relatives claimed that Kerry Ann Smith, of a Denham Town address, had been pronounced dead by doctors at KPH and taken to Madden's when, in fact, she had been in a coma.
According to reports, they noticed body movements, such as her eyes twitching, after she was pronounced dead, suggesting that she was still alive, and demanded that Ms. Smith be taken back to the hospital. However, she was again pronounced dead when she was taken back to the hospital.
"Mi get di phone call and hear dem seh dem find har in a har bed curl up with the Bible a read and dem say she nah move. So dem call the police and say she dead, in which way she is a coma somebody, so mi woulda rather dem carry har back in a de hospital and find out," Marie Hudson, relative of Miss Smith, told reporters as police tried to control the crowd outside Madden's.
Chief executive officer (CEO) at the KPH, Donald Farquharson, and owner of Madden's, Ferdinand Madden, told The Gleaner that their reports indicate that Ms. Smith had been taken from her home to the KPH after a relative and police constable found her dead. A doctor at KPH pronounced Ms. Smith dead.
There was some speculation that the movements in her body might have been a case of rigor mortis (a stiffening of the body which occurs within some eight hours after death), but Mr. Madden said that it was highly unlikely that relatives saw body movements, which are possible in death as body systems shut down and cells continue to die, but are rarely observed by non-medics.
