Now and then, I'll read a story about someone who has nightmares that revolve around being barely alive. Well, this poor man wasn't buried alive, but he was declared dead and refirgerated. Ewww....
PARIS - A 68-year-old man was mistakenly declared dead last week and refrigerated for five hours at a funeral parlor before a worker noticed he was alive, a Bordeaux hospital said Monday.
The unidentified man, in the final stages of cancer, was declared dead Friday at a nursing home near the southwest city of Bordeaux. A doctor summoned to the home issued a death certificate.The man then was sent to a funeral parlor in nearby Macau, where he was refrigerated for five hours. An employee at the funeral parlor was preparing the man for burial when he noticed signs of life.
"When I ... opened the cover, I saw that his stomach was moving," Laurent Besson told France-2 television. "I don't deny that I jumped."
The man was transferred to the Bordeaux University Hospital and placed in intensive care, where he died Sunday night, a hospital statement said. It was unclear whether the refrigeration played a role in the man's death.
The head of the hospital's forensics department, Sophie Gromb, said such errors, while rare, are not improbable.
"A person can experience respiratory pauses, and if there's no pulse at the time, the subject could be declared dead," she said. "The law says you can't bury someone within 24 hours of his death, precisely to avoid burying people alive."
So, no, he wasn't dead, just sleeping soundly, eh?? Man, the next time I take a nap I'm going to be a LOT more careful.... Also, remind me that I probably don't want to use that doctor to do my lobotomy.
