Farmer Walter Williams was mistakenly pronounced dead and about to be embalmed when he woke up inside a body bag at a funeral home.
In a shocking medical miracle that defies belief, an elderly man who had been wrongly declared deceased and was moments away from embalming suddenly came to life inside a body bag at a funeral home.
Walter Williams was a farmer whose extraordinary story captured worldwide attention when he regained consciousness just as staff at Porter and Sons Funeral Home in Mississippi, USA, were about to begin the embalming procedure.
The remarkable truth emerged that Walter, aged 78 at the time, remained very much alive.
On February 27, 2014, the grandfather-of-15 had been taken to a hospice battling congestive heart failure.
Healthcare professionals declared him deceased after the coroner and nursing staff examined his pulse around 9pm, failing to detect any heartbeat. He was then transported to Porter and Sons Funeral Home in a body bag.
Precisely as embalmers were about to commence the preservation process — the technique employed to prevent decomposition for public viewing at funerals or wakes — he began stirring. Emergency crews raced Walter to hospital, where medics theorised that a cocktail of drugs or a malfunctioning pacemaker might have caused his vital signs to disappear, reports the Mirror.
A medical phenomenon
Holmes County Coroner Dexter Howard revealed to CNN at the time: “We got him into the embalming room, and we noticed his legs beginning to move, like kicking. He also began to do a little breathing.
“Every case I do is a learning experience,” Dexter continued. When asked what insight he’d gleaned from the Walter Williams incident, he responded: “That miracles can happen.”
Walter’s nephew Eddie Hester said: “I stood there and watched them put him in a body bag and zip it up. That was at 10:30pm, and at 2:30am, my cousin called me and said ‘Not yet’ and I said ‘what do you mean not yet’.
“He [my cousin] said, ‘Daddy still here’,” the Mirror reported.
Dexter informed the BBC that Walter’s relatives were left utterly stunned upon discovering his miraculous revival and were celebrating wildly.
The coroner revealed he had witnessed nothing comparable to the Walter Williams incident throughout his entire two-decade career in the role. “It’s an unusual case. I hope he keeps on keeping on,” said Dexter.
Walter’s daughter Martha Lewis said: “Seemed like he had more life in him again. And then we had just stopped talking, he told us ‘what did you all stop talking for?’ Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus.
“It was not my daddy’s time. I don’t know how much longer he’s going to grace us and bless us with his presence, but hallelujah, we thank him right now.”
Heartbreakingly, just 15 days after his remarkable tale gripped the globe, Walter, known affectionately as Snowball, passed away at his home in Lexington, Mississippi at 4.15am on 14 March, 2014. The elderly man succumbed to natural causes.
Speaking to CNN, Eddie confirmed: “I think he’s gone this time.”
Describing it as a “two week miracle”, his nephew reflected: “It was a two week miracle for me and I enjoyed every minute of it and my family did too.”
