A prisoner in Spain was saved from being cut open after he reportedly began snoring from inside a body bag - despite being certified dead by three doctors.

Gonzalo Montoya Jimenez, an inmate at a jail in the Asturia region, woke up just hours before his post-mortem examinination after guards believed he had died in his cell in the morning.

The "death" had been signed off by three experienced doctors who then sent his body to the mortuary.

His family told local newspaper La Voz de Asturias that his body had been marked and was "ready to be opened up" when noises were heard from inside the bag.

Hospital sources reportedly believe the prisoner may have a condition called catalepsy, where a person's vital signs slow down so much they are barely perceptible.


Montoya, 29, is now in intensive care at a hospital in the regional capital Oviedo.