Coroner thought man was dead until he began kicking inside body bag

A Lexington farmer was actually alive inside his zipped-up body bag as funeral home workers got ready to embalm him.

According to The Clarion-Ledger, a coroner pronounced 78-year-old Walter Williams dead at his home on Wednesday night.

However, five hours later Williams woke up inside the bag while being prepared at the Porter and Sons Funeral Home in Lexington, Miss.

“I did my part in checking him, I filed my paperwork, and we were ready to make the removal,” Coroner Dexter Howard said. “We got him to the funeral home and into the embalming room and noticed the kicking and he began to breathe.”

Williams’ nephew, Eddie Hester, told WAPT-TV News that he “stood there and watched them put him in a body bag and zipped it up,” right after the coroner checked the pulse of his uncle.

“I asked the coroner what happened and the only thing he could say is that it’s a miracle,” Holmes County Sheriff, Willie March, said.

Once Williams became vocal and began moving inside the bag, paramedics rushed Williams to a hospital. The coroner said it could have been that Williams’ pacemaker stopped working and then started up again while inside the body bag.

“I don’t know how long he’s going to be here, but I know he’s back right now. That’s all that matters,” Hester said.