A cardiac anaesthesia consultant with Apollo Hospitals on Wednesday told the Commission of Inquiry looking into the death of Jayalalithaa that about 11 hours after she had suffered a cardiac arrest, the former Chief Minister’s heart had worked on its own for half an hour.

Apollo Hospitals’ counsel Maimoona Badsha said that Dr. Minal Vohra, who appeared as a witness, had told the Arumughaswamy Commission that Jayalalithaa had an intrinsic heart rhythm for half an hour at 3.20 a.m. on December 5, 2016. She was connected to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation device at that point, having suffered a cardiac arrest at 4.20 p.m. the previous day.

Dr. Vohra, a member of the team that connected the former Chief Minister to the ECMO device, referred to her inpatient consultation notes to back her observation. It was for the first time that the commission was told that Jayalalithaa’s heart worked on its own after her cardiac arrest.