Posted on 01/25/2003 4:43:32 PM PST by MadIvan
A Sicilian man who had been pronounced dead by doctors startled relatives by sitting up just before he was to be put into his coffin and demanding a glass of water.
Minutes later 79-year-old Roberto De Simone, from Palermo, was rushed back to the Vincenzo Cervello hospital in the Sicilian capital, where 12 hours earlier doctors said he had died.
His wife and children, who had been praying over what they believed to be his corpse, declared his recovery to be a miracle. Hospital staff admit that they are baffled by his revival.
Mr De Simone himself was more enigmatic. "Old Uncle Giuseppe hasn't got me yet. Both he and paradise can wait," he is said to have declared in a quavering voice on his re-admission to hospital.
A family friend told The Telegraph that the comment was a reference to a late relation with whom Mr De Simone had never been on good terms. It was customary in Sicily, the friend said, for people to talk of the day they would die as being "taken by the Lord - but in Roberto's case, he was over the moon to find that he had not been taken by his eternal enemy, Uncle Giuseppe".
Details of the retired council employee's remarkable recovery were last week gripping locals who have an irresistible fascination with the afterlife.
Relatives said that after feeling unwell at his home in Palermo, Mr De Simone had been taken to the hospital the previous week. There he suffered a serious heart attack.
Doctors managed to restart his heart with an adrenaline injection but Donald Trozzi, his son-in-law, a policeman from Pescara, in mainland Italy, said: "At 3.30am, the doctors told us that my father-in-law had entered a coma and that later there had been brain death."
In an effort to spare the grieving family members the usual red tape that follows deaths in Italian hospitals, doctors arranged for Mr De Simone - whose heart was still beating - to be discharged as if he were still alive. He was sent home in an ambulance.
There, his body was laid out on a bed, the undertaker was sent for and his Sunday best was being readied to dress him for his coffin. As his daughters Rosaria and Anna sat with other friends and relations weeping over his corpse, the nearly-departed Mr De Simone opened his eyes and in a plaintive voice said: "I'd like some water, please. You know, I'm awfully thirsty."
The women cried that it was a miracle and Mr De Simone was rushed back to the hospital, where he is now recovering from "serious respiratory problems".
The family friend told The Telegraph: "The family is understandably very tired and feeling fragile, and have asked to be left in peace."
Really?
I don't know ,if they embalm or not. Maybe, that's a good reason not to,or at least wait for a few days before embalming.
"Conn, the Shaughraun, the soul of every fair, the life of every funeral, the first fiddle at all weddings and patterns".Then we have Finnegan's Wake
Tim Finnegan lived on Walker StreetOh, and happy Robbie Burns Day!
And a gentle, Irishman, mighty odd;
He'd a beautiful brogue so rich and sweet
And to rise in the world he carried a hod.
You see he'd a sort o' the tipplin' way
With a love of the liquor poor Tim was born
And to help him on with his work each day
He'd a "drop of the cray-thur" every morn.
One mornin' Tim was rather full
His head felt heavy which made him shake;
He fell from the ladder and broke his skull
And they carried him home his corpse to wake.
They rolled him up in a nice clean sheet
And laid him out upon the bed,
With a gallon of whiskey at his feet
And a barrel of porter at his head.
His friends assembled at the wake
And Mrs. Finnegan called for lunch,
First they brought in tea and cake
Then pipes, tobacco and whiskey punch.
Biddy O'Brien began to cry
"Such a nice clean corpse, did you ever see?
"Tim, mavourneen, why did you die?"
"Arragh, hold your gob" said Paddy McGee!
Then Maggie O'Connor took up the job
"O Biddy," says she, "You're wrong, I'm sure"
Biddy gave her a belt in the gob
And left her sprawlin' on the floor.
And then the war did soon engage
'Twas woman to woman and man to man,
Shillelagh law was all the rage
And the row and eruption soon began.
Then Mickey Maloney raised his head
When a noggin of whiskey flew at him,
It missed, and fallin' on the bed
The liquor scattered over Tim!
Tim revives! See how he raises!
Timothy rising from the bed,
Says,"Whirl your whiskey around like blazes
Thanum o'n Dhoul! Did you think I'm dead?"
Dead ringer comes from an old practice of burying the coffin with a string accessible to the "deceased" and attached to a bell. If the "deceased" was actually alive, they could ring the bell to get help to be removed. An attendant stayed nearby the new grave for a few days to listen for the bell.
That reminds me of an old "Tales from the Crypt where a woman was cranted 3 wishes by an old statue she bought in a pawn shop.After wasting 2 wishes accidently,and caused her husband to be killed,she made the last one while he was in his coffin that he'd come back to life.What she didn't think about was that he had enbalming fluid in his veins and started writhing in agony.The statue had warned to think about what you wish for.
Absolutely sure. The giveaway is that he asked for water, darling. ;)
Love, Ivan
They need to reread Poe's "The Telltale Heart".
"drop of the cray-thur"
Should read: drop of the creature (Scot phrase found itself in there for some reason)
a noggin of whiskey
Should read: a naggin of whiskey
And of course, the chorus:
Whack fol the dah
now dance to yer partner
around the flure
yer trotters shake
Wasn't it the truth I told you?
Lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake
Big Tune!
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