I'm having a hard time deciding whether the so-called dead man who woke up inside a South African morgue and is now perfectly healthy and walking around is the luckiest man alive or the unluckiest. Think about it, this guy was sleeping so deeply over the weekend that his family couldn't wake him up. So what did they do?
They called the local morgue to come pick up their "dead" relative. OK, really? This guy sleeps that deeply that his family pounding on his chest and breathing into his mouth didn't wake him up (this, of course, is assuming they tried all the regular things you do when someone is passed out ... hopefully!)?
On the one hand, I'm officially jealous. My kid sneezes in the next room, and I'm up like a flash, trying to figure out what's wrong. I have to cut my caffeine consumption off midday like a grandmother because I can't fall into a deep sleep with anything in my system. The sleep of the dead sounds pretty darn good after a night when the dog's nails in my foot brought me 'round at about 2 a.m., and I never really got back to my REM cycle. People pay big money for drugs that will give this guy what he got seemingly naturally.
But talk about a flip side! The "dead" man's family was so convinced he was gone that they just up and called a morgue to get him out of their hair! The officials in their corner of South Africa are putting out a warning that people really should call an ambulance with trained emergency technicians to CHECK if someone is dead before they call the undertakers in to take the body out.
You don't often hear healthworkers saying stuff like "We need to [get] the message across to all South Africans that it is very wrong for them to conclude on their own that a person has died." That certainly puts an "unlucky" spin on it, doesn't it?
What's your call? Luckiest man alive or somebody who should steer clear of the casinos?
Image via Pavel Tcholakov/Flickr