Not the zombie apocalypse

Walter Williams is alive today because he kicked his legs inside a body bag as morticians were getting ready to embalm him. That’s right, 78-year-old Williams was just minutes away from the embalming process with workers getting ready to unzip his body bag and put him on the table, according to the Huffington Post on Feb. 28. So what went wrong and how did this happen? How was Williams pronounced dead when he was still alive?

Family members said their good-byes to Walter “Snowball” Williams and watched as the coroner zipped him into a body bag and solemnly whisk his body away. Hours went by when the family got a phone call from the funeral home telling the family that Williams is very much alive and some mistake had been made.

Their beloved family member had seemingly come back from the dead and is now in the hospital, the family learned. Williams was pronounced dead at 9 p.m. on Wednesday night, then carted away to the funeral home morgue and discovered alive on Thursday morning.

Can you imagine the panic that Williams must have felt waking up in a body bag? What about the eerie feeling that must have come over the funeral home employees as they watched a body kicking inside a body bag, which usually contains a lifeless body?

The big question today is, what happened? How could this man, who is very much alive, be declared dead? When Williams was pronounced dead on Wednesday night he had absolutely no pulse, which indicates death.

How was Williams declared dead when he was still alive?

Dexter Howard, Holmes County Coroner, suggests a reason that may have rendered Williams without a pulse when he was checked before being declared dead. He surmises that the man’s pacemaker had stopped working, rendering him a man without a pulse and meeting the criteria for death. Once he was pronounced dead and taken away, he believes Williams pacemaker started working again, literally bringing Williams back to life. It sounds as if this entire ordeal could be the result of a pacemaker malfunction?

Williams, who is a farmer, has told his family members he is happy to be alive today.
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And you thought Easter was in April!