A grandmother is said to have come back to life after being dead for 40 minutes in Thailand.

Pua Sriphueng, 85, was reportedly found unresponsive by her family at her home in Buriram province on February 5.

The pensioner's frantic granddaughter, Sommai Dee-la-at, 49, said she tried but failed to wake her up. She checked her vital signs and when there was no pulse, she called an ambulance to take Pua's body to the temple for a funeral.

However, as they were preparing to move Pua into the vehicle, they were all bewildered when the wispy elderly woman suddenly opened her eyes and sat up on her bed.

She reportedly began behaving like a child, throwing tantrums as she demanded sweets and asked to be cradled like a baby.

Speaking about the apparent resurrection, a baffled Sommai said: 'At that time, I was certain that my grandmother had passed away because I checked her breathing and pulse before calling the rescue team.

'We were shocked and scared when she suddenly woke up. She was dead and then came back to life in front of our eyes.'

Relatives said Pua had previously disliked going to temples or participating in religious rites. But the grandmother has since had a change of heart, now even inviting monks into the family's home for prayers.

Sommai said: 'For me, it felt like the Gods in heaven knew my grandmother was not religious, so they sent her back to earth to visit the temple and pray.'

Pua had a medical check-up at the Nang Rong Hospital, where doctors attributed her bizarre behaviour to her old age.

The baffling rebirth came after a villager also 'came back to life' in Sakhon Nakhon province last month.

Mourners were shocked when a man named Phet, 45, suddenly showed up to his own funeral on January 20. Police had mistakenly declared him dead after finding the corpse of a male individual in the province.

Phet, a garbage collector, said he is usually away from home for days at a time due to his job. His prolonged absence led his family to believe he was the dead person.

In November last year, an Indian man who was thought to be dead and spent almost three hours in a freezing morgue came back to life moments before he was about to be cremated.

Rohitash, 45, is said to have shocked onlookers when he began breathing as he was about to be burned on a crematorium pyre in Jhunjhunu City in Rajasthan state on November 21.

Footage showed the live but seemingly catatonic man wrapped in a blanket surrounded by stunned onlookers. An ambulance was summoned to take him to the Rajkiya Bhagwan Das Khetan (BDK) Hospital.

Officials explained the mistake to local media by claiming that bungling medics had simply skipped the post-mortem examination which would have confirmed the patient was deceased.