14 DAY TRIAL // Worryingly enough, it seems that not even specialists know for sure if someone is really dead. A weird incident occurred at a Mississippi funeral home, where members of the personnel found a man alive and kicking in his own body bag.
On Wednesday night, coroner Dexter Howard of Holmes County, Mississippi, declared Walter Williams legally dead after feeling no pulse. Call it a miracle, but four hours later, Williams woke up in a body bag on an embalmer’s table.
The coroner was called to Mr Williams' home in the city of Lexington by a hospice nurse. He found him without any sings of pulse and declared him dead at 9 p.m., according to the Examiner.
After the official went through the usual procedure and completed the required paperwork, the 78-year-old man was transferred to Porter and Sons Funeral Home for preparations. However, he was discovered alive and awake the next morning, when the funeral home employees were preparing to embalm him.
It is thought that the man's pacemaker had stopped working for a short period of time, and that's why the coroner found no heartbeat.
Mr Williams' nephew, Eddie Hester, said: “I stood there and watched them put him in a body bag and zip it up. [Then] my cousin called me and said 'Not yet...Daddy's still here'.”
Mr Williams, who has been a farmer and school board employee, was immediately taken to Holmes County Hospital and Clinics for treatment.
Byron Porter, of Porter and Sons Funeral Home, said he had never seen anything like that in his entire life: “I’ve never experienced anything like it. He was not dead. Long story short.”
According to a report published by the Time, there are some things that went wrong in Mr Williams' case. After his supposed heart failure, the local coroner called at the scene did a less exacting job than he should have, according to Sheriff Willie March.
The sheriff affirms that the coroner checked for wounds, not for a pulse, and highlights that Howard might not have been the appropriate person to declare him dead. He says that an authorized medical officer should have certified the death.
His opinion is corroborated by Thomas Lynch, a funeral director, who says, “A coroner is not a medical officer. Often it’s just the local undertaker or the local favorite of whoever is in charge.”