Not dead yet, Chilean man wakes up at his own wake

[Bright Eyes]

An 81-year old man in the small Chilean village of Angol shocked his grieving relatives by waking up in his coffin at his own wake, local media said on Sunday.

When Feliberto Carrasco's family members discovered his body limp and cold, they were convinced that the octogenarian's hour had come, so they immediately called a funeral home, not a doctor.

Carrasco was dressed in his finest suit for the wake, and his relatives gathered to bid him a final farewell.

"I couldn't believe it. I thought I must be mistaken, and I shut my eyes," Carrasco's nephew Pedro told the daily Ultimas Noticias.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080120/od_afp/chilefuneraloffbeat

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. Sorta' like Fred Thompson.

[zabet]

3. Yep, the living dead.

:rofl:

[mmonk]

2. That would be interesting.

He no longer has to wonder what his funeral will be like.

[OregonBlue]

4. Which is why it's called a wake.

In the 1500's - Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if the would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

[Warpy]

6. Well, for the Irish it was also so the devil couldn't come around

and steal the newly separated soul that was hanging around until it came to terms with the separation and headed for heaven.

[stellanoir]

8. Not to stickle and I might be mistaken but I thought that they were pewter mugs

and that certain harvests and resulting batches of ale would have fungal agents that would have a semi toxic reaction with the pewter and render those who imbibed into comas.

No biggie though.

[Warpy]

5. Had a patient like that once

he was dying from an inoperable heart condition and had made himself DNR rather than go on the transplant list. He'd go into a fatal dysrhythmia and be cool, pulseless, breathless, and clinically dead. He stayed that way for me one night long enough for me to call the ER doc to come pronounce him, and get the death kit set up at the bedside, ready to go. Then he woke up again. There was nothing to do but welcome him back after his half hour trip to the other side.

That's probably what happened to this old gent. My guess is that it's a temporary reprieve. He won't last a whole lot longer.

[ret5hd]

7. I'm not dead yet!

[stellanoir]

9. Nor is Reagan from the threads I've not opened over the last week.