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.
Water? He wanted a glass of water? In Italy? In Sicily? They made this story up, didn't they?
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.
He went back to the hospital after they'd pronounced him dead and he'd been laid out for the undertaker? I hope it wasn't the same hospital... |