Update: Black senior citizen who was almost embalmed while alive has died.
Walter Williams, 78, died around 2 a.m. on March 13 at his home in Holmes County, Miss. His nephew, Eddie Hester, asked the county coroner to “be sure this time.”
Embalmers at Porter and Sons Funeral Home got the shock of their lives when a corpse started moving on the embalming table last month. Apparently, Williams was mistakenly pronounced dead by a Mississippi medical examiner several hours earlier while he was in the hospital. The coroner, Dexter Howard, stated that he had examined Williams and since he had no pulse, he declared him dead at 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 26. It is suspected that Williams’ pacemaker may have malfunctioned and restarted his heart after he was declared dead.
The manager of the funeral home told the media that when they saw that Howard was still alive, they rushed him back to the hospital.
Two weeks later, Williams died for a second time.
