Man in body bag waiting to be embalmed woke up after being declared 'dead'

A man declared dead by medics was miraculously saved when he woke up at a horrifying moment.

Walter Williams was a farmer from the US, and had been taken to Porter and Sons Funeral Home in Mississippi when it was believed that the 78-year-old had died. The grandad of 15 was taken to a hospice with congestive heart failure, where staff pronounced him dead at around 9pm after nurses were unable to find a pulse at around 9pm.

After being confirmed as having died, Walter was taken to a funeral home. He was zipped up inside a body bag, and staff at the funeral home began to prepare to start embalming him.

This is a very unpleasant process, and can involve removing organs and using embalming chemicals to preserve a body.

Walter woke up in a body bag (Youtube)

But in a shocking moment, Walter woke up while he was inside the body bag - despite being declared dead and taken to the funeral home.

Speaking to CNN at the time, Holmes County Coroner Dexter Howard said: “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.”

He added: “Every case I do is a learning experience."

In Walter's case, the coroner said that what he had learned from this was 'that miracles can happen'.

Walter's nephew Eddie Hester had also seen his uncle being taken away, and the shocking moment he found out that his uncle was still alive.

He 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 coroner had told the BBC that Walter's family had been left 'just in a state of shock' after they were told that he had not died after all.

Walter was declared dead (YouTube)

Dexter said that in more than 20 years of working as a coroner he had never seen anything like this.

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."

She added: "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.”

Unfortunately, Walter would not survive for longer after his ordeal, dying of natural causes just over two weeks after the incident, and this time he did not wake up.

Speaking to CNN, his nephew Eddie said: "I think he's gone this time.

“It was a two-week miracle for me and I enjoyed every minute of it and my family did too.”