BACK FROM THE DEAD
Or not, in some cases. Our latest round-up of morgue mix-ups, premature burials and resurrections
KNOCK ON WOOD
In Peru, a horrific car crash killed Rosa Isabel Céspedes Callaca and her brother-in-law and severely injured her three children. At her funeral in Chiclayo, Callaca apparently started banging on the lid of her coffin to the horror of the assembled mourners. Cemetery administrator Juan Segundo Cajo opened the lid and found that she was breathing and had opened her eyes. Callaca was rushed to Ferreñafe Reference Hospital but could not be saved and died permanently several hours later. boingboing.net, 4 May 2022.
DEAD/ALIVE/DEAD
In Guaratinga, Brazil, Caroline Lopes de Almedia, 93, was found to be still alive and warm in her coffin at what was supposed to be her funeral. She was rushed back to Hospital Oswaldo Cruz, where she had been prematurely declared dead, but unfortunately, when they got there, she was found to have actually died on the way. Metro, 18 Oct 2021.
LADY LAZARUS
During the coronavirus outbreak in Shanghai, undertakers Wu Jianchong and Han Fei were sent to a care home to collect the body of a 75-year-old woman who had died of the virus. When they got there, the body had already been disinfected and sealed in a body bag which the two men picked up to transfer to their hearse. As they were carrying the bag, they felt the body move, so demanded that staff from the New Long March Care Home reopen the bag and check the body again. When they did so, according to a funeral home spokesperson, “Wu Jianchong removed the towel covering the face of the ‘dead’ and his judgement was correct; the so-called human remains were a live person.” The woman was rushed to hospital, where she was reported to be in a stable condition. Wu and Han were given a £600 bonus for saving the woman’s life, but the care home director and several local officials were sacked, and the doctor who declared the woman dead had his licence revoked. Times, 4 May 2022.
DEFROSTED
After Srikesh Kumar was hit by a motorbike in Moradabad, near New Delhi, India, he was rushed to a private clinic in a critical condition, but was declared dead on arrival by a doctor and taken to a government hospital for a post-mortem. There, he was left in a freezer until his family arrived six hours later. “The emergency medical officer examined him. He did not find any signs of life and hence declared him dead,” said Rajendra Kumar, the hospital’s medical superintendent. However, he added, “When a police team and his family came over to initiate the paperwork for the autopsy, he was found alive.” He was rescued from the freezer and given treatment, remaining stable, but in a coma. “This is nothing short of a miracle,” said Kumar. telegraph. co.uk/news, 21 Nov 2021.
RESURRECTION FAIL
In 2008, Brazilian pastor Huber Carlos Rodriguez prophesied that once he died, he would be resurrected after three days, saying that he had received the information from “divine revelations”. He stipulated, “My physical integrity has to be totally preserved, since I will be dead for three days and on the third day, I will be resurrected,” and even detailed the exact time of his future resurrection: 11.30 at night. When he died of Covid-19 in the city of Goiatuba in October 2021, the faithful expected him to keep his word and staged a vigil outside the funeral home where his body was being kept, playing music and singing as they awaited the prophesied resurrection. Despite pressure from sanitary authorities to bury the corpse, the funeral home followed family instructions and kept the pastor in a cold room for the required three days, but insisted on burying him one hour after the 11.30 deadline passed, although the hundreds of mourners demanded the coffin be opened to show that
The faithful wait in vain for Pastor Rodriguez (inset) to resurrect. A shock was in store for mourners at the funeral of Rosa Isabel Callaca.
Rodriguez was really inside. “As a Christian, I believed that a miracle could happen. We live and learn every day. In the Bible, it is written that it is possible,” said Jose Dourado, manager of the funeral home. marketresearchtelecast.com, 27 Oct 2021; Metro, 28 Oct 2021.
NOT DEAD
Sheriff’s deputies in Georgia sent out to investigate reports of a body found on a trail in the Hitchiti National Forest swiftly realised that the “deceased female wearing white socks” was “actually a life-sized doll, complete with accessories”. Taken back to the station and cleaned up, she has been named Selena and the Sheriff has issued a statement saying: “If you know Selena or are responsible for her whereabouts, rest assured no DNA was collected and you are safe. But in the future, please make sure to dispose of your items in a responsible way.” [UPI] 7 Feb 2022.
For other recent returns from the grave, see FT334:10-11, 357:223, 363:12, 381:21, 386:2021, 398:8-9.