Dead man walking . . .

AN elderly Vietnamese man who was declared dead and sent to a morgue overnight, was discovered alive and well the following morning when his daughter went to retrieve the body for the funeral.

Nguyen Van Quan, 73, was declared dead and taken to a Ho Chi Minh City hospital morgue but was found alive by his daughter the next morning, the Vietnam News daily reported yesterday.

“I was shocked when I saw the blanket that covered my father moving,” said Quan’s daughter. “When the morgue’s officials pulled back the blanket, my father’s eyes moved, brightening with joy.”

A doctor at the hospital, where Quan had been admitted after complaining of chest pain, said: “He is still in the emergency section.”

After Quan’s heart failed and he was declared dead, he was placed in the morgue where he lay for seven hours among corpses.

The doctor declined to elaborate on the case but said investigations into the incident were under way.

The incident happened on August 15 but was only reported yesterday.

It is the second time this year that a man declared dead, has “come back to life.”

Earlier this year in Italy and elderly man was pronounced dead and his body taken home by his family. The family only discovered he was alive when they heard the “corpse” coughing.