This week, the news of the death of a Covenant University student shook the internet.
Following the death of Toluwase Jesutunmise Emmanuel at Covenant University while playing football, the school, through its Vice Chancellor, released a statement explaining what led to his unfortunate demise. Prior to that, his friends and colleagues alleged that his death was caused by a lack of an oxygen tank in the university’s clinic and the school’s failure to transport him to a hospital after paying ₦1.9-2million as school fees.
The school, in turn, released a statement where they stated he was BID (Brought In Dead). They said: 
“Though he was brought in dead, the doctors responded immediately by administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) with an automated external defibrillator (AED). However, all efforts to resuscitate Jesutunmise were unsuccessful. Subsequently, he was certified clinically dead due to a prior undisclosed heart condition.”
The question is: does it make sense medically to perform CPR and use a defibrillator on someone who is already dead?
NBG Africa asked a resident doctor at a University Teaching Hospital, Ibadan whether CPR can be done on someone brought in dead. He said:
“No. If there are no signs of life when the patient is brought in, no resuscitation will be done, because the person is dead. Will you resuscitate a corpse at a funeral or the morgue? If you won’t, then there is no point here either. Unless you want to raise them by the power of God, resuscitation is done in the immediate moment that a person is dying. You are trying to save the person from dying. Once clinically dead, there is no point anymore, unless you want to perform showmanship in certain situations.”
It appears is it unlikely but not impossible to perform CPR on a dead person. While, we can’t say if it was a lie or not. The two versions of event are quite conflicting and more investigation needs to done into the matter.
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