A man in Russia’s Far East woke up in the morgue after having been declared dead, local media report. Before the incident, he had been doing vodka rounds with friends – and after the “miraculous awakening,” he went back to the party.
The man who was mistakenly taken for dead passed out after drinking too much, local Khasanskiye Vesti newspaper reported Wednesday. However, it is not clear when exactly the incident took place. Khasanky Region is a coastal area in Russia’s Far East, which is home to some 35,000 people scattered over the territory of 4,100 square kilometers.
His friends called an ambulance and medical staff hastily declared the man dead before taking him to the morgue, according to the daily. However, the man eventually came back to his senses (somewhat) – only to find himself in a mortuary freezer.
“That night the local morgue was filled to its capacity, the bodies were not only on the shelves, but also on the floor of the freezer room, where our ‘dead’ hero was allocated,” Aleksey Stoyev, a police spokesman, told the newspaper.
“At some point, the man woke up, failing to understand where he was. It was very dark and cold. In addition his brain was foggy due to the influence of alcohol. In the darkness, he felt someone’s completely cold limbs and in fear rushed to the door. But it was locked.”
He started screaming for help and pounding on the door. His calls drew the attention of the morgue’s guard, who reported the situation to the doctors. The latter thought that the guard was imagining things, according to the local report. Nonetheless, out of cautiousness the doctors called police.
Opening the door police were met by the ‘resurrected’ man who in panic ran out of the room, according to the department of criminal investigations. Police questioned the man and released him.
Returning to the place of the party, he found his friends were still drinking, but this time commemorating him. The person who opened the door was so shocked that he fainted, Hasanskie Vesti says. The commemoration ceremony was quickly revamped into a re-birthday party.
That’s nothing. I was reported to the police as being a dead body on three separate occasions (but thankfully, I never made it to the morgue).
At one time it was popular among wealthy people to be buried in coffins that had bell ropes installed, so if you woke up in your coffin, you could pull the rope, and this would ring a bell on the surface to announce that you were still among the living.
This practice eventually resulted in the working hours of midnight to eight (A.M.) being known as the “graveyard shift”, because people were employed to listen for these bells at night.
“What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells !
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright !
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,” …….
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells —
Bells, bells, bells —
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.