I’m not dead…

“He says he’s not dead!”

So begins the dialogue in Scene 2 of Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail. That’s a British comedy film, full of utterly ridiculous scenarios – like a bloke who’s not dead being taken away because some relative thinks he knows better.

Some say that, even by Monty Python standards, it’s a little too far-fetched.
They’ve obviously never been to the Eastern Cape:

 A 50-year-old South African man woke up inside a mortuary over the weekend and screamed to be let out – scaring away attendants who thought he was a ghost.
His family presumed he was dead when they could not wake him on Saturday night and contacted a private morgue in a rural village in the Eastern Cape.

He spent almost 24 hours inside the morgue, the region’s health department spokesman told the Sapa news agency.
The two attendants later returned and called for an ambulance.

The man – whose identity has been withheld – was treated in hospital for dehydration.

“Doctors put him under observation and concluded he was stable,” Eastern Cape health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said.
“He did not need further treatment.”

It’s another feather in the cap for South Africa’s image abroad, with this being the second most read story on the BBC News site today. Yes – even despite all that “other stuff” going on.
That said, this is the Eastern Cape we’re talking about. It is a little backward, even by SA standards.
I mean…  have you been to PE?

Meh – everyone’s an expert, aren’t they:

“We need to [get] the message across to all South Africans that it is very wrong for them to conclude on their own that a person has died,” Kupelo said.

Perhaps there should have been a bit more “Oh, I can’t take him like that – it’s against regulations” before our hero ended up in the morgue.

3 thoughts on “I’m not dead…

  1. Bring out yer deaaaaad…

    How much do you think it would cost for the hammer treatment in EC?

  2. May I remind you that your great uncle Athol was pronounced dead and put in Nobles Hospital mortuary. Fortunately because his “death” was unexpected a second doctor’s signature was required on the death certificate and this second doctor noticed signs of life. Athol was rehydrated and lived for another 4 years.

  3. T > Or yer alive.

    Dad > Quaint cottages and country lanes. The IoM and PE share some other similarities too.

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