Reports of Lazarus Syndrome Reawaken Fears of Premature Burials and Autopsies

The biblical account of Lazarus being raised from the dead by Jesus Christ - after the former having been buried for four days - provided the name for the Lazarus Syndrome a.k.a. Lazarus Phenomenon. In simplest terms, a person believed to be dead and unresponsive to any and all resuscitation attempts suddenly and without medical intervention comes back to life.

The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine refers to the Lazarus Phenomenon as an underreported occurrence; the Departments of Anesthesiology and Surgery at Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh, report of 24 known cases since 1982. According to today's news, it is not mere speculation but instead the counter is still turning over.

AHN reports that a lawsuit has been filed by a Delaware man whose wife was declared erroneously dead by an attending hospital physician. For about one hour and 16 minutes the allegedly dead woman was without medical attention or care, until a nurse walked by and by chance noticed that the patient was indeed breathing and very much alive.

The hospital's defense is that the patient's wife must have suffered from Lazarus Syndrome.

This of course awakens the age old fear of premature burial, proving that it was more than just a figment of Edgar Allen Poe's imagination. Snopes details a number such cases spanning the distant past as well as the not quite so distant recent history.

Even as in days of old stories about premature burial - most likely due to a Lazarus Phenomenon - did not come to light unless grave robbers plied their trade (as is outlined by the BBC's article on Marjorie McCall), today's time lapse between supposed death and actual burial sometimes spans a considerable amount of time. Thus, while those affected might not actually wake up in their coffins, a more likely locale is the body bag inside a chilly morgue.

This almost happened in 2007 to a man in Dublin's Mater Hospital. Metro reported that he had been declared dead, scheduled for a trip into the morgue, his family had been notified, and the undertaker was on his way to collect the not quite yet departed. It was the morgue staff that discovered a very much alive patient.