A new book has claimed that people can be resuscitated even after they have been considered clinically dead. Critical care doctor at Stony Brook University School of Medicine, Dr Sam Parnia writes so in his book Erasing Death: The Science That is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death.

"The advances in the last 10 years have shown us that it's only after a person dies that they turn into a corpse, that their brain cells start to die," Parnia said.

"Although most people think this takes place in four or five minutes, it actually takes up to eight hours. Thus we can restart the heart."