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The boundary between life and death is often elusive, making it a challenge to draw a clear distinction. In fact, some governments have had to issue advisories urging citizens not to attempt diagnosing a family member's death, as even trained professionals—such as doctors, nurses, and paramedics—can struggle to accurately determine whether someone is truly deceased or not. While it may be shocking to think that medical experts might mistakenly declare living individuals dead, such occurrences happen far more frequently than one might imagine.
As demonstrated by these 10 remarkable cases of people who survived being wrongly reported dead, it's not just Mark Twain who famously quipped, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” Regrettably, these situations are far from humorous, even for those who live to tell the tale after being prematurely declared dead.
10. Timesha Beauchamp
In August 2020, 20-year-old Timesha Beauchamp was pronounced dead, only to later be sent to a Michigan funeral home. An employee, preparing her body for embalming, opened the body bag to find her eyes wide open, staring directly at him. As the family’s attorney Geoffrey Fieger pointed out, “They were about to embalm her... Had she not had her eyes open, they would have begun draining her blood.”
When paramedics arrived after the family called for help upon discovering Beauchamp unresponsive, they declared her dead after failing to revive her when her breathing stopped. She was then transferred to the hospital in critical condition, placed on a ventilator.
The responders asserted that they followed the correct protocols, while officials claimed that Beauchamp’s undisclosed medical history was the reason her 'body' was released without further forensic investigation.
The city of Southfield, Michigan, is now facing a $50 million lawsuit for the wrongful declaration of Beauchamp’s death. Additionally, the four paramedics who responded to the scene are also being sued. According to the lawsuit, the lack of oxygen in the body bag caused Beauchamp to suffer brain damage.
9. Analia Bouter’s Newborn Baby
In Argentina, a newborn baby, presumed stillborn, spent 12 hours in a morgue. The baby’s mother, Analia Bouter, attributes this tragic mistake to hospital negligence. Just 15 minutes after her birth on April 3, 2012, the infant was placed in a coffin and left for dead in the hospital’s refrigerated morgue.
While praying at their daughter's side, Analia and her husband Fabian Veron opened the coffin to find their baby breathing. The premature child was then declared to be in critical but stable condition. The couple named their daughter Luz Milagros, meaning Miracles.
Following this life-threatening error, five hospital employees were suspended. The hospital's administrator could offer no clear explanation. He stated, “The baby was attended to by obstetricians, gynecologists, and a neonatologist. They all concluded the same: that this child was stillborn.”
8. Charles Crawford
An odd story appeared in The New York Times on January 21, 1901, titled “Live Man Taken to the Morgue.” The article detailed how Charles Crawford, who had shot his wife Sarah before attempting suicide, was declared dead and taken to the morgue. However, assistant Joseph Murphy discovered that Crawford was still alive.
After an ambulance brought Crawford to St. Michael’s Hospital, Sister Soherta performed a quick examination and confirmed the police officer’s suspicion: Crawford had died. His body was then transported to Mullins morgue, where an assistant immediately noticed signs of life. Crawford even spoke to Murphy as he was moved from the ambulance to the vehicle used to transport bodies to the morgue.
Left in the freezing morgue of an unheated building during the depths of winter, Crawford was certain to have perished, as noted in the newspaper article, had he not been rescued. He was fortunate that Murphy was present that night, as ambulances typically do not have doctors on board and there was no physician on duty at the hospital when Crawford arrived. The hospital relied on doctors on call for such emergencies.
7. Walter “Snowball” Williams
At 78 years old, Walter “Snowball” Williams woke up inside a body bag after being declared dead at his home in Lexington, Kentucky, in February 2014. He managed to free himself by kicking, and the next morning, funeral home workers were stunned to find the man alive. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was declared stable despite his traumatic experience. The coroner confirmed that Williams’s malfunctioning pacemaker had caused the false death reading.
Williams’s nephew, Eddie Hester, who had witnessed his uncle being zipped inside the body bag, joyously celebrated his uncle's miraculous return from the dead. Williams, who had been scheduled for embalming the day after being brought to the funeral home, was equally thrilled to be alive.
6. Valdelucio de Oliveira Goncalves
Two hours after being declared dead from respiratory failure and multiple-organ failure in August 2014, 54-year-old Valdelucio de Oliveira Goncalves, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, was seen moving inside his body bag. His brother, who came to the morgue with other family members to dress Goncalves, discovered that the man, presumed dead, was still breathing. His feet were bound, and his nose and ears were stuffed with cotton.
The Menandro de Farias Hospital in Salvador, the capital of Bahia state, launched an investigation into the incident. A spokesperson for Bahia’s health department stated that hospital directors would meet with the medical team who treated the patient to clarify the actions taken.
5. Larry Donnell Green
At first, neither paramedics nor the medical examiner were able to determine that Larry Donnell Green was still alive. It wasn’t until after he had been declared dead, placed in a body bag, transported to the morgue, and stored in a freezer that it was discovered he was, in fact, alive.
Green, a 29-year-old man who was struck by a car in Franklin County, North Carolina, in January 2005, was believed by his parents to have sustained irreversible brain damage from the accident, leading to significant medical expenses. The family has filed a lawsuit against the county medical examiner and the emergency workers involved, seeking $20,000 in compensatory and punitive damages for negligence and emotional distress, hoping to prevent other families from enduring the same painful experience.
Paramedics Randy Kearney, Paul Kilmer, Cathryn Lamell, and Pam Hayes, along with volunteer emergency medical technician Ronnie Woode, were placed on paid suspension. Green was then transferred to Duke University Medical Center in Durham, where he was put on life support and listed in critical condition.
Green was discovered to be alive when medical examiner J. B. Perdue examined his body while determining the cause of death. Perdue instructed the same paramedics who had transported Green to the morgue to take him to the hospital instead.
Franklin County Manager Chris Courdriet admitted, “A grave mistake was made, and we are taking swift action to correct these issues so that such a situation doesn’t occur again in the future.” He added, “It’s certainly an unfortunate incident—no question about it.”
Tamuel Jackson, the 36-year-old man who struck Green, was charged in connection with the accident.
4. Premature Baby
The premature infant evidently didn’t enjoy being kept in a morgue refrigerator. On October 22, 2020, when undertakers at a hospital in La Margarita, Puebla, Mexico, removed him from cold storage to prepare him for his funeral, the baby began crying and moving. The father, whose child was born prematurely at just 23 weeks, encouraged the baby to 'keep fighting.' The baby was then transferred to an intensive care neo-natal unit for continued observation.
Miguel Angel Flores, owner of Funeraria Flores and one of the undertakers involved, recalled, 'We called the father over, and he too saw that the baby was crying. We quickly called the doctor who had signed the death certificate.' Flores expressed disbelief at the baby’s survival after six hours in the refrigerator. 'I can't fathom how he didn’t die there,' he remarked. The refrigeration unit, he noted, was typically used for storing amputated limbs.
An investigation into the incident is currently underway.
3. Tom Sancomb
Unable to reach her 46-year-old boyfriend Tom Sancomb for two days, his girlfriend requested a police welfare check. The officer, along with the apartment manager, found Sancomb collapsed in his apartment. Fire department paramedics did not attempt resuscitation, as he was 'cold to the touch and in rigor.' He was declared dead at 2:10 a.m. on May 19, 2015. Forensic investigator Genevieve M. Penn then informed Sancomb’s brother, John, of the tragic news. John requested an autopsy to determine the cause of his brother’s death.
At 3:00 p.m., when a team arrived to transport Sancomb to the morgue, they were surprised to find him breathing and moving one of his arms and legs. His pulse soon returned, and he was quickly rushed to Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital in Milwaukee. The strange series of events left many wondering what had happened. The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s report was 'heavily redacted,' and the hospital's spokesperson, Evan Solochek, refused to disclose further details, citing federal privacy laws. Sancomb’s condition has been improving daily, according to his brother.
2. Rosa Celestrino de Assis
Sixty-year-old Rosa Celestrino de Assis from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, spent several hours inside a body bag in a refrigerated morgue at the Hospital Estadual Adao Pereira Nunes, where she had been treated for a lung infection. Her daughter, Rosangela Celestrino, was called to the scene to identify her mother’s body. When Rosangela hugged her mother one last time, she 'felt her breathing' and exclaimed, 'My mom is alive!' The others present seemed to think she was 'crazy,' as they stared at her in disbelief.
On the evening of September 23, 2011, at 7:20 p.m., a doctor had declared Rosa dead following tests related to her lung infection. She was then taken to the morgue. However, by 10:00 p.m., Rosangela discovered her mother was alive, and Rosa was immediately transferred to the hospital’s intensive care unit. The nurse who had initially suspected Rosa’s death was dismissed, and the doctor who declared her dead resigned.
1. South African Man
In July 2011, after a 60-year-old South African man suffered an asthma attack, his family assumed he had passed away. Rather than calling paramedics, they contacted a local mortuary. Over two hours later, the man, still inside a refrigerated compartment, awoke and began screaming. His cries, however, went unheard, as the mortuary workers fled in fear, convinced they were hearing the wail of a ghost.
Eventually, the workers returned with reinforcements and decided to open the refrigerated compartment. Inside, the man, confused and shivering, was discovered. The workers promptly called an ambulance, and six hours later, after being held under observation in the hospital, the man was deemed stable and sent home.
Sizwe Kupelo, a spokesperson for the Eastern Cape Health Department, remarked, 'The temperature in the refrigerator is set to preserve corpses, so you can imagine it is far from suitable for a living person.' Kupelo further suggested that the 60-year-old’s ordeal would likely have lasting consequences. 'In the village, I’d bet the rumor’s already spreading that a ghost walks among them... and certain family members might not be eager to stay the night with him,' he said.
When the government made the incident public, they issued a reminder to citizens: only qualified medical professionals should make death pronouncements. The family's belief that their relative had died was confirmed by the morgue staff. Ayanda Maqolo, the morgue owner, stated that his driver had examined the body, checked the pulse, and looked for a heartbeat but found none. Maqolo himself believed the 60-year-old man, suffering from asthma, was about 80 years old.
