Doctors were carrying out an autopsy on Jose Ruben Zamora Marroquin when they detected small signs that the journalist was hanging on to life.
The founder of El Periodico, an independent newspaper in Guatemala, had been kidnapped, drugged, and left for dead.
Quickly, medics revived Zamora to fight again for the free press he holds so dear.
The incident in 2008 was perhaps the worst ordeal for the journalist's family members, who for decades have lived with the consequences of Zamora's crusade for press freedom, in a country marked by repression.
In an interview with VOA, Zamora's son Ramon detailed the many ways that assailants targeted his father: car bombings, repeated kidnapping attempts, and legal cases, including the one the journalist is currently fighting while being held in a Guatemalan prison.
"This has had a cost on our family without a doubt. There has been a lot of stress and uncertainty," Ramon Zamora told VOA, adding there is no doubt that everyone in his family has suffered a form of post-traumatic stress.
The anthropologist has lived in exile in Miami since April because he, too, fears arrest. It is not the first time the 34-year-old has moved away from his home country over security fears.
"We have spent years without family and now my father is in prison facing new charges. It all adds up," he said.
That seems an understatement when Ramon Zamora relates the chilling history of attacks against his 67-year-old father.
Ruben Zamora, whom the Spanish newspaper El Mundo has described as an "icon of the free press in Central America," is among many journalists in the tiny Central American state of 17 million who risk their lives.
Last year, five journalists were murdered, says Dagmar Thiel, U.S. director of the non-governmental press freedom organization Fundamedios.
Bernardo Arevalo, the country's newly elected president who is due to take office Sunday, has vowed to fight corruption and halt the exodus of journalists, judges, lawyers and prosecutors.
Thiel said Guatemalan journalists faced a difficult climate after a 2007 Special Commission Against Impunity was created to investigate corruption and genocide.
"They prosecuted almost 1,500 people and convicted 400 of them. [These people] fought back. There was this pacto de los corruptos, (pact of the corrupt) of organized crime, corporate interests and politicians. Of course, journalists were the first to be attacked for telling the truth," she told VOA.
For Zamora, the latest attacks are legal rather than physical. A court has convicted the journalist of money laundering and sentenced him to six years in prison in a trial denounced by press freedom groups. The prosecution had originally sought 40 years over a string of charges including money laundering, influence peddling and racketeering. All accusations that Zamora denies.
In October, a Guatemalan appeals court overturned that sentence, but Zamora, who has been in pre-trial custody since July 2022, faces new charges of obstructing the actions of the government and falsifying documents. He is due to stand trial in February.
And after nearly three decades of publishing, his paper shut down in May.
Under Zamora, El Periodico had built a strong reputation for its journalism. But it was targeted from its conception.
In 1996, while Zamora and other members of the founding team were discussing plans at a restaurant, a grenade was thrown at his car outside.
"He was not injured but shaken up by what happened," said his son, Ramon.
Seven years later, in 2003, authorities carried out a raid on Zamora's house. The family left the country, but Zamora stayed.
It was a decision that nearly cost him his life.
In August 2008, he was kidnapped and drugged, and his naked body was dumped about 80 kilometers from the capital, Guatemala City.
"A woman called the police to tell them she had found this body. Doctors thought he had died of hypothermia," Ramon Zamora recalled.
"They took his body to the morgue. They carried out an autopsy and to do that they needed to take out liquids from his body."
It saved the journalist's life.
"The doctors noted signs that he was feeling pain and that meant he must still be alive," Ramon Zamora said.
Four men were later jailed for the kidnapping. But the masterminds behind the kidnapping have never been traced, Ramon Zamora told VOA.
The younger Zamora, who lectures at the Valle de Guatemala University, said there also had been an attempt to kidnap him in 2013.
"We respect my father for his decision to stay and to continue fighting. But it has had a cost. The real issue is living with security guards all the time and to know the days and hours in which it is safe to move and the places you can go," the son told VOA.
Ramon Zamora added that despite being imprisoned, his father remains in good spirits.
"We can send him 100 quetzales ($13) each week so he can speak on the telephone. Some members of the family can visit. But he has lost about 40 pounds [since] the start of his imprisonment," he said. "His eyesight suffered at first because of the poor light. He keeps writing a blog."
In a blog post dated December 30, Zamora detailed his life in a military hospital, where he is kept in an isolation cell with only one hour for exercise per day. That space to exercise measures just three meters by three meters.
He details how he is woken at 3 a.m. to travel to the hospital with other prisoners. They are accompanied by six guards, and he is handcuffed throughout.
Despite everything the family has been through, Ramon Zamora said it has been worth it.
"The only option is an independent press, which is critical and strong," he said. "After all the attacks on the press, the best response is more journalism. We can only get this if we have readers who support free journalism to create just societies."
