Dead wrong: Man attends own funeral after mix-up over body’s ID
Nov 8th, 2009 by Bilal Ali
On the holiday known as the Day of the Dead, a Brazilian bricklayer walked into his own funeral.
The sight of Ademir Jorge Goncalves alive shocked relatives, some of whom tried to jump out of the windows of the funeral home in southern Brazil.
“In my 10 years in this business, I have never witnessed a scene like this,” said Natanael Honorato, manager of the funeral home in the Parana state.
On November 1, some family members and friends had identified the victim of a car crash as the 59-year-old Goncalves.
They scheduled his funeral for the following day, Dia de Finados, a holiday when Brazilians remember loved ones who have died.
What Goncalves’ family did not know is that he had spent the night drinking at a bar near the site of the crash, but he was not the victim.
When the bricklayer got word of his funeral, he showed up at the Funeraria Rainha das Colinas funeral home Monday morning.
Later that day, the mystery was solved when a family in a neighboring town came inquiring about a son who was missing.
The family recognized the body — and took it away for burial.