
Audio By Carbonatix
A 74-year-old man in India who was rescued from a freezer has died.
Mr Balasubramanyam was kept in the freezer after he was allegedly declared dead by a private hospital in the southern state of Tamil Nadu on Monday.
The funeral service company which came to collect the body on Tuesday found that Mr Balasubramanyam was moving in the freezer and rescued him.
The police took him to hospital, where he died on Friday. A case of negligence has been registered against the family.
The dean of the government hospital in Salem, Dr Balajinathan, told BBC Tamil that the patient was admitted in a drowsy condition and died of lung-related problems.
He said doctors had no information about how long the patient stayed inside the freezer and whether his death was related to that.
The police said they had registered a case against the family for "acting rashly or negligently to endanger human life".
Salem police chief Senthil Kumar said the family had told them that Mr Balasubramanyam was suffering from neurological problems, and that a doctor at a private hospital had declared him dead on Monday. But they could not produce a medical certificate of his death.
He said the family took the body home, called a local undertaker to send a freezer box and informed relatives about Tuesday's funeral. Mr Balasubramanyam lived with his wife, two daughters and his brother.
On Tuesday, the undertakers who arrived to collect the "body" found him alive and shivering in the freezer. They called in the police.
The funeral service workers said they had been informed by Mr Balasubramanyam's brother that they had "a signed letter of a doctor regarding his demise".
It is not clear how Mr Balasubramanyam survived the freezing temperatures inside a box for nearly 24 hours and whether the private hospital, where he was initially declared dead, was being investigated for the incident.
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