OT - Embalmers find man alive and kicking in body bag

Submitted by Cold War on

Workers at a Mississippi funeral home found an elderly man alive and kicking in a zipped-up body bag as they were preparing to embalm him, the Clarion-Ledger reports.

Walter Williams, a 78-year-old farmer who had been pronounced dead at his home Wednesday night by a coroner, woke up inside the bag at the Porter and Sons Funeral Home in Lexington, Miss., about five hours later.

"I asked the coroner what happened, and the only thing he could say is that it's a miracle," Holmes County Sheriff Willie March said...

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2014/02/28/bodybag-coroner-mississippi-funeral-home/5896561/

GoBlueinOhio

February 28th, 2014 at 4:24 PM ^

He died on 1/1/14 at his home with family around him. When we called Hospice they came in and started paper work, they called the cornor and all he did was ask the nurse if he was dead. No one took a pulse or confirmed he was dead. I asked her that question when the funeral home came to take him.. she said oh yeah, I am sorry I need to do that.  So yeah I can totally see this happening.

ChiBlueBoy

February 28th, 2014 at 3:26 PM ^

Look who knows so much. Turns out your farmer friend is only MOSTLY dead.

Turns out he's a Mississippi State booster and wanted to make sure that young recruits got his loose change.

bluesalt

February 28th, 2014 at 3:29 PM ^

This used to be not uncommon in past centuries, and it was a big fear of some people, including Edgar Allen Poe. I believe he was buried with a bell contraption extending into his casket, so he could ring it if he were brief alive.

ChiBlueBoy

February 28th, 2014 at 3:45 PM ^

That was a not-uncommon practice. Several devices for warning of people buried alive were patented in England and the US. These were known as 'safety coffins'. Some believe it's also the source of the expression "saved by the bell," but there's no real evidence for that. The expression most likely came from boxing.

French West Indian

February 28th, 2014 at 4:14 PM ^

....why you might want to think twice before signing off on any organ donation.  The poor guy might have woken to see them cutting out his insides.  When the criteria is "brain death" then it's a pretty fine line between being alive & dead.   If there is some greedy doctors hot for your insides then where's the motivation for anyone to keep you alive?  Even worse if you got a large life insurance payout and a wife that hates your guts.

umichjenks

February 28th, 2014 at 4:26 PM ^

I work as a nurse in Detroit and I never heard of this. It's not a fine line for brain death, two different doctors perform their brain death exam 24 hrs apart. We never know who's an organ donor. All we do is call Gift of Life when the patient meets a certain stage of of responsiveness, aka Glascow Coma Scale of 5 or less.

Abe Froman

March 2nd, 2014 at 12:26 AM ^

Apologies that it took so long to finally respond to your comment; I saw it this morning and am only now giving it the attention it deserves.

As was already articluated by another reader, you sir are an ignorant ass-hat.  As a former member of a transplant team, I can honestly say that many people in the general population opt not to donate their organs due to misinformation and fear-mongering generated by uninformed Luddites like yourself.  Less donors mean less organs, and less organs means fewer lives saved.  On behalf of modern medicine and those desperately waiting for life-saving transplants, please crawl out from under the rock where you reside and get a clue.

1)  Multiple studies are conducted to establish clinical brain death over a period of time.  It's not a "snap-judgement" and would have to be incorrectly diagnosed multiple times over that period. 

2) Brain death is irreversible.  This is NOT a coma.  It is impossible to awaken from brain death.  Saying it's a "fine line between being alive and death" is like suggesting that a broken television isn't actually broken so long as you leave it plugged into the wall.

3) Coroners do NOT pronounce brain death.  Licensed physicians board-certified in neurology do.

4) The medical team working to save the paitent's life has no association to the transplant team, and thus no financial nor other incentive to get "greedy" and "hot for your insides."  The regional transplant organization is only contacted after brain death has been established.

I really hate to be that guy on the internet who has to log on just to say that you are wrong, but your comments go beyond unenlightened and ignorant when they perpetuate myths and stereotypes that have real life-or-death consequences.  Here's a new strategy that might serve you well in life:

Think first. Open pie-hole second.

 

 

m1817

February 28th, 2014 at 4:41 PM ^

Three old men were talking about their funeral services and wondering what people would say about them as they passed the casket.

One man said, "I hope they will say what a great father and grandfather he was. His every wish his family wanted, he gave them.  What a great man."

The second man said, "I hope they will talk about my community service - my perfect attendance at our Rotary Club, my effort to keep parks available for everyone."

The third man hoped they'd say something different:  "Look! He's moving!"

 

LSAClassOf2000

February 28th, 2014 at 6:20 PM ^

"He said, 'Gracie, don't get upset. We're fixing to take your daddy to the hospital,'" she said. "I said, 'What?' And he told me, 'He's back moving.'"

This has to be the one type of call that you would never expect from a funeral home, the one that goes, "As it turns out, we had to turn your father away because he is in fact alive...". Glad that the family gets to enjoy their father for a bit longer though. The article from the paper in Mississippi did not have any insight into what precisely the medical issue was though - I was curious about that. 

Danwillhor

February 28th, 2014 at 10:49 PM ^

my first thought. Loss of loved ones is a terrible fear I have (think we all do but it's a genuine, daily, borderline OCD fear for me) and imagine that switch off events. To be in absolute loss and pain only to then get a call to be told "Hello. Umm.....I have amazing news for you. You're husband/father/sibling/friend is, in fact, very much alive and well. We made a mistake." IMAGINE THAT! Haha. 99.99999999999% of the time you hear that terrible news it's final. It's fact. Must be a feeling beyond happy to get that call. For the man, WOW. lol

pinkfloyd2000

March 1st, 2014 at 10:54 AM ^

Given the extreme over-saturation of zombies in pop culture, I'm shocked that they didn't knife his head through the body bag once they saw it kicking and moving.