Back From The Dead: Man Attends Own Funeral
Thursday, November 5 10:46 am
© Sky News 2009
A bricklayer who was thought to have been killed in a car crash shocked his grieving family by showing up alive at his own funeral. Skip related content
Relatives of Brazilian Ademir Jorge Goncalves, 59, had identified him as the victim of a Sunday night car crash in the southern state of Parana, police said.
As is customary there, the funeral was held the following day, which happened to be the holiday of Finados, when Brazilians visit cemeteries to honour the dead.
What family members did not know was that Mr Goncalves had spent the night at a lorry park talking to friends over drinks of a sugarcane liquor known as cachaca, his niece Rosa Sampaio revealed later.
He did not get word about his own funeral until it was already happening Monday morning.
The bricklayer then rushed to the funeral to let family members know he was not dead, a police spokesman in the town of Santo Antonio da Platina said.
"The corpse was badly disfigured, but dressed in similar clothing," said the police spokesman.
"People are afraid to look for very long when they identify bodies, and I think that is what happened in this case."
Mr Goncalves' niece added that some family members were not sure the body was that of the bricklayer.
"My two uncles and I had doubts about the identification," she said.
"But an aunt and four of his friends identified the body, so what were we to do? We went ahead with the funeral."
The police spokesman confirmed there were doubts: "His mum looked at the body in the casket and thought something was strange. She looked and looked and couldn't believe it was her son.
"Before long, the walking dead appeared at the funeral. It was a relief."
The body was correctly identified later Monday, the police spokesman said, and has already been buried in another state.
