It is not surprising at all. While death can be defined at the level of the organism, there are times when it is not clear at all whether cells are alive or dead.
One time, I conducted a dose-response study of a deadly toxin in some human cells. At the high end of the dose range, the cells quite clearly died. At the low end of the dose range, the cells became "ill" but recovered. The length of time to recovery correlated with the dose of toxin I had given them. Somewhere in the middle dose range, there was a plate of cells that looked alive under the microscope. Each cell attached to the plate and spread spiky extensions of itself in all directions. This is what some cells do to look for other cells; when they encounter each other, they crawl towards each other. So, in this respect, the cells appeared alive. However, they did not grow. The number of cells stayed constant daily. I gave them fresh media every couple of days, but they still just sat there, crawling around and looking spiky. At one point, I removed them from that plate and put them in a new plate. When cells are removed from a plate, they turn into little balls, and these were no different. When I checked on them the next day, they had resumed their normal spiky appearance. But... they still would not grow. I think I gave up on them after about six weeks.
Dead cells do not grow. And dead cells do not attach to the plate, spread out, or crawl around. These cells were neither alive nor dead.
Like Schrödinger’s cat................