A Nebraska nursing home resident was declared dead and taken to a local funeral home — where workers unexpectedly discovered she was still alive.

"I can't imagine her family has went through," Chief Deputy Ben Houchin of the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office said.

Constance Glantz, 74, was receiving end-of-life hospice care at The Mulberry nursing home in Waverly when she was mistakenly thought to have died around 9:45 a.m. Monday.

Glantz was transported to the Butherus Maser & Love Funeral Home in Lincoln, where workers put her on embalming table around 11:40 a.m. and immediately noticed she was breathing.

The workers began performing CPR and an ambulance crew took her to a nearby hospital where local TV station KETV said she died around 4 p.m. Monday.

During a news conference before her death, Houchin called it a "very unusual case."

"Been doing this 31 years and nothing like this has ever gotten to this point before," he said.

Glantz had been seen within the past week by a physician who was willing to sign a death certificate so a coroner wasn't called to the nursing home when she was mistakenly believed to have died, Houchin said.

"At this point, we have not been able to find any criminal intent by the nursing home but the investigation is ongoing," he said.

A woman who answered the phone at the nursing home Tuesday declined to comment, the Associated Press reported.