Man Dies After Day in French Morgue

Reuters ^ | 8-12-02 | Reuters

[Pharmboy]

BORDEAUX (Reuters) - A man wrongly pronounced dead spent the day in cold storage before a mortuary assistant charged with preparing his body for burial found he was still breathing, French hospital authorities said on Monday.

Emergency services rushed the 68-year-old man to the intensive care ward of a hospital in Bordeaux in southwest France after the worker raised the alarm on Friday night, but he died on Sunday, the authorities said.

The man, terminally ill with cancer, was declared dead on Thursday by a doctor at an old-age home and his body was sent to the mortuary near Bordeaux the next morning.

Police have opened an inquiry.

[Pharmboy]

I'm not dead yet!!

[Paul Atreides]

I can't begin to imagine what a French corpse would smell like.

[AppyPappy]

I can't begin to imagine what a French corpse would smell like.

One word: better

[blau993]

New MedicAlert bracelet fro those traveling to France:

Do Not Declare Me Dead Without Obtaining A Second Opinion!

[beowolf]

Yes, you are...now, shut up!-)

[Paul Atreides]

LOL! Are you sure? Think about it...

[CougarGA7]

"I think I will go for a walk."

[Pharmboy]

Sacre bleu!! Cannot a man tek a nap around here wizout getting shipped off to ze morgue??

[Gumlegs]

Is there a reason we should find the second opinion any more reliable than the first?

[thinktwice]

Police have opened an inquiry.

Are they rounding up the usual suspects?

[Gumlegs]

Absinthe has that effect.

[Focault's Pendulum]

This sort of reminds me of their defense of their homeland during WWII.

[Nick Thimmesch]

Yet another reason I/to hate The French: they can't tell the smell of a live vs. dead man in that dump country.

[mhking]

"Bring out yer dead!"

[Gumlegs]

I'm getting better!

[Cold Heat]

Another case of over medication by a nursing home.

[Chad Fairbanks]

And, from what I understand, Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder, as well... ;0)

[SunnyUsa]

don't go to France anytime soon.....

[Focault's Pendulum]

Yet another reason I/to hate The French: they can't tell the smell of a live vs. dead man in that dump country.

Perhaps you misunderstood my statement in regards to WWII. It was meant as an allegorical...somewhat satirical reference to their noble defense of France by constructing The Maginot Line along a border which the Germans never intended using.

Allow me to clarify...The French by their very nature, are a very proud people, with a very heroic past. It was unfortunate, that in the early part of the twentieth century they allowed their political structure to dictate unreasonable terms to other parts of Europe, without substance or other means of force, leaving them open to aggression, from dictatorships willing to chance their own reputations on the world's stage.

Hence, they became the laughing stocks of both the Europeon and North American continents, after both times being rescued from total destruction from forces outside their control.

Having been so humiliated twice in one century...it could be considered only natural that they would become defensive over issues concerning anyone who might want to live

I really hate having to explain a satirical comment.

[Romulus]

APPARENT FAILURE

"We shall soon lose a celebrated building."

No, for I'll save it! Seven years since,
I passed through Paris, stopped a day
To see the baptism of your Prince;
Saw, made my bow, and went my way:

Walking the heat and headache off,
I took the Seine-side, you surmise,
Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff,
Cavour's appeal and Buol's replies,
So sauntered till-what met my eyes?

Only the Doric little Morgue!
The dead-house where you show your drowned:
Petrarch's Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue,

Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.
One pays one's debt in such a case;
I plucked up heart and entered-stalked,
Keeping a tolerable face
Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked:
Let them! No Briton's to be balked!

First came the silent gazers; next,
A screen of glass, we're thankful for;
Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text,
The three men who did most abhor
Their life in Paris yesterday,

So killed themselves: and now, enthroned
Each on his copper couch, they lay
Poor men, God made, and all for that!
The reverence struck me; o'er each head
Religiously was hung its hat,
Each coat dripped by the owner's bed,
Sacred from touch: each had his berth,
Who last night tenanted on earth
Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast-
Unless the plain asphalt seemed best.

How did it happen, my poor boy?
You wanted to be Buonaparte
And have the Tuileries for toy,
And could not, so it broke your heart?

You, old one by his side, I judge,
Were, red as blood, a socialist,
A leveler! Does the Empire grudge
You've gained what no Republic missed?
Be quiet, and unclench your fist!

And this-why, he was red in vain,
Or black-poor fellow that is blue!
What fancy was it turned your brain?
Oh, women were the prize for you!
Money gets women, cards and dice
Get money, and ill luck gets just
The copper couch and one clear nice
Cool squirt of water o'er your bust,
The right thing to extinguish lust!

It's wiser being good than bad;
It's safer being meek than fierce:
It's fitter being sane than mad.
My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That, after Last, returns the First,
Though a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best, can't end worst,
Nor what God blessed once, prove accursed.

Robert Browning