They say when your numbers up, your number is up. Try telling that to these people. Here is a list of 16 people who refused to die.
1. “Receive My Soul”
Anne Greene was sentenced to death by hanging for murdering her “bastard” child, and hiding the body in her boss’s house. Seems a little grim, but it was 1650 and what was an unwed mother to do. She was taken to the gallows and fitted with a noose. Her chilling last words were “Sweet, Jesus receive my soul.” The hangman kicked the stool from beneath her feet, and Anne’s body hung for half an hour.
Anne Greene had always proclaimed her innocence, and her friends were on her side. To quicken her death they thumped on her chest, and hung with their weight upon her legs, lifting her up and pulling her down again with a sudden jerk. Thankfully, someone stopped the madness, they cut her down and put her in a coffin, which was to be delivered to a doctor for “research”.
As the doctor began cutting her open he got quick the surprise. One touch of the scalpel on her chest and Anne’s corpse let out a groan.
What happened next depends on who you ask. Some people say the doctor immediately tried to warm her body, and revived her. Others say the doctor tried to kick her dead by stomping on her chest, the force so strong it ended up jump starting her heart.
Whichever you prefer, it doesn’t change the happy ending to this story. Anne was declared innocent of her crimes, and she lived a long life bearing three more children.
2. Slip And Fall
It was a crisp fall day in 1571, Mathew Wall was a local farmer and he was on his way to his funeral. Why you say? Well, the whole village of Braughing in Hertfordshire was there, and it’s be rude not to show up to ones funeral. While the villagers were walking to the event, Wall was getting carried by four pallbearers in a coffin.
As they neared the church, one pallbearer slipped on some wet leaves, and dropped the coffin. Everyone in the crowd jumped as they heard the coffin crashing down, but they would be even more spooked by what they heard next. (Story continues on the next page!)
Knock. Knock. Knock.
They opened the coffin and Mathew Wall appeared live and well. He had come back from the dead, and had not wanted to be buried that day. Hewent on to live another twenty-four years, after the incident.
October 2, the day of the funeral, is celebrated in Braughing village as Old Man’s Day. The celebration consists of children sweeping leaves from the front of the church, to prevent another accident.
3. The Ring
Dr. John McCall was a doctor in 18th century Lurgen, Ireland. His wife, Marjorie, had fallen ill with a fever, and being the 18th century that was a cause for death. The McCalls’s were a well off family, and naturally that meant Marjorie had been wearing an expensive gold wedding ring at the time of her death. Many had tried to remove the ring before her burial, but each to no avail. Her finger had swelled making it impossible, so she was buried in Shankill Cemetery to prevent spreading of her sickness.
News of Marjorie’s ring had spread through the town, and some grave-robbers went to work digging up her coffin. They were overjoyed when they found the valuable ring on the woman’s finger. They to tried to remove the ring from her finger, but only found failure. The two agreed the only resolution was to saw off the whole finger. When the sharp blade dug into Marjorie’s skin she came back to life shrieking in pain. The grave-robbers were startled and fled, leaving Marjorie all alone. She climbed out of the grave and headed home.
Across town Dr. McCall was living his life as widower, not knowing yet of his wife’s fate.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Dr. John answered the door, and was greeted by his wife. He immediately dropped dead. His fate was sealed in his wife’s coffin, and he was buried in the very grave Marjorie had just escaped from.
4. Indian Burial Ground
It was 548 A.D and the Christians of Iona, Scotland, decided it was high time to build a chapel on an ancient burial ground. As we know from every horror film, this is a bad idea. The Christians went on anyway, but they came across a problem. Each morning they would wake up to discover the work they had done on the chapel the previous day was destroyed. That’s when a man named Columba had a brilliant idea. They should bury someone alive in the foundation!
We don’t see the logic here, but apparently Odran did. He was a monk, and Columba’s brother, so we’re assuming he volunteered to be supportive. With the promise that he’d be safe, they put Odran underground, and it worked! The chapel was finished.
Now, as we know there are two sides to every story. If yous ask Columba he’d tell you he missed Odran and he freeded his brother. Ordan had revealed much wisdom from his death. “There is no such great wonder in death. There is no Hell as you suppose, nor Heaven that people talk about.”
Deep.
However, Ordan’s side goes a little more like this:
Ordan awoke to life he began to escape his grave, when Columba spotted him. Columba shoved Ordan back down into the earth, and covered the pit.
Whoever you believe, we can all agree these two needed to attend family therapy.
5. Saint Or Not
If the name Thomas Kempis sounds familiar it’s because you know him work as the Catholic monk who wrote The Imitation of Christ (although it is a subject of much debate) In 1471 he died in Zwolle, and church authorities began to debate whether or not he would make a good saint. They exhumed his body and had planned to go forward with his canonization, but they found scratch marks inside the coffin, and splitters underneath Thomas’s nails. This man was no saint he was trying escape his fate of death. Were they going to completely ignore the the holy miracle of his resurrection after death? Yes. Thomas was denied canonization, never becoming a saint.
6. Final Breath
In April 2011, a 65-year-old Malaysian man, Ng Swee Hock had gotten into a fight that landed him in the hospital. After spending 45 minutes doing CPR they gave up. At 11 a.m he was pronounced dead. Until two-and-a-half hours later, he took another breath.
7. Ready For Burial
February 2010, a 45-year old Colombian woman in Cali, Colombia, was declared dead, and we mean dead. The death certificate was signed, and her body was on it’s way to a funeral home to be prepared for burial. A worker began to inject the lifeless body with formaldehyde preservative, and it did something that has never happened before. It brought the woman back to life!
8. It’s Cold In Here
During the summer of 2011, an 80-year-old man in the Eastern Cape died from complications after having an asthma attack. His family called the morgue to fetch the body, which was being stored in a refrigerated compartment to cool. Twenty-one hours had passed, and the family began planning the funeral arrangements at the facility when they heard someone yelling for help. Everyone thought it was a ghost, so naturally they called the Ghost… police. They called the police, and they discovered the old man was in the freezer alive and well.
9. Waiting In Line
In June of 2009, a man called an ambulance when his 84-year-old wife fainted. The ambulance rushed her to the hospital where the emergency service doctor declared the woman dead. Her body was sent to the morgue, where the woman he lay deceased for several hours. Luckily there was a line for the embalming services that day, because this woman was not ready to go. Life burst back into her body, and the morticians noticed the body bag moving. They unzipped the bag and found all the woman’s vital signs to be working.
10. New Mother
2009 was quite the year for this soon to be mother in Kuwait. She was giving birth to her baby by caesarean, and shortly would be pronounced dead. Her husband had a mix of emotions as he was greeted with his new born baby, and a death certificate for his wife.
His wife’s body was taken to the morgue where she was stowed away for about two hours before she awoke. Terrified at being locked in a cold dark area, the woman began screaming and banging, hoping someone would come along and free here.
A worker had finally come to rescue the woman, and her husband was called back to the hospital to return her death certificate. The happy family were reunited, and able to start their life together.
11. Tomb Raider
John Duns Scotus was a Scottish theologian who died of apoplexy in November 1308. He was buried in a tomb in the chapel of the Franciscan church. Years later the tomb was opened, and Scotus was found outside his coffin. It seems that after his resurrection he had begun to try to free himself from the tomb. His hands were found torn and covered in blood. Dead a second time.
12. King Of The World
King Zog of Albania currently holds the record of the most assassination attempts made on his life, with a whopping 50 attempts. We can’t go through all of them so here are his greatest hits.
He was shot twice at close range as he entered his Assembly Hall. After one of his guards “took care of” the man, Zog casually walked into the hall and took a seat at his desk, as if this happens to everyone.
On his first and final foreign trip to Vienna in 1931, an assassin made an attempt on his life as he was entering his car. Zogs reaction? Well, he pulled out a gun and fired at the man, which caused him to retreat.
King Zog died in exile in 1961.
13. Character In A Detective Novel
Hussein bin Talal was the King of Jordan from 1952 until his death in 1999. During his life he was the victim of 12 assassination attempts. He was quoted as saying, “sometimes I have felt like the central character in a detective novel.”
The first attempt at his life was in the summer of 1951, when he was attending Friday prayer at a mosque with his grandfather. A Palestinian extremest opened fire, killing his grandfather. Hussein vengefully pursued the the gunman. When he caught up to him he was shot in the chest, but out of sheer luck the bullet was deflected by a medal he was wearing that was given to him by his grandfather.
Another attempt on his life was made in 1970, after a gunman opened fire on his motorcade. He walked away unharmed, but his driver was wounded in the attack. The king jumped out of his car, and fired back at his attacker.
He lived until the age of 63, and his death was not the result of an assassination attempt, but of cancer.
14. Love Machine
Prepare to enjoy the story of the many lives of Grigor Rasputin. For those of you not familiar with his tale he is much more than the “love machine” Bonny M. has made him out to be. For a while it looked like the rumored psychic might have been immune to death.
The first attempt at the mystic’s life was on June 29, 1914. He was murdered by a sex worker named Guseva. She stabbed Rasputin in the gut until she saw all his insides on the outside. When she had finished she shouted, “I have killed the antichrist!”
She didn’t.
Rasputin came back from the dead and continued to live his life, until he would be murdered again on December 16, 1916, by his “friends”. They invited him over for cake and wine. Except they had used a special ingredient to make his food, cyanide. How much cyanide? Oh, just enough to kill five men. Rasputin sat eating and drinking, his friends watching as nothing happened. He didn’t die, he wasn’t even gagging. So, one of the men got bored and shot him… in the back, as any good friend would do. Rasputin hit the floor dead. His friends left to celebrate. When the returned Rasputin was alive, and angry. Not only did his friends go out without him, they had tried to kill him!
Again they tried to kill him. Thinking teamwork was their best option, they all began to shooting at him.
Rasputin just wouldn’t die, so after his third resurrection it was time to take a different approach. (continued…)
He was beaten with clubs, and his penis was cut off. Surely Rasputin wouldn’t want to come back to life without a penis, what would be the point? To finish him off they tied him up, wrapped him in a blanket, and dumped his body into the freezing Neva River.
After a few days, Rasputin’s body was removed from the river. It was surprising to see that when they found him, his arms were outstretched. Meaning Rasputin had come back to life again and broken free from his restraints. Later, they found he had water in his lungs, which is evidence that was alive for sometime while in the water.
So, what had killed this seemingly invincible man?
The official autopsy report lists the cause of death as hypothermia. Despite the poison, beatings, and four bullet holes, one of them being in his forehead, a little cold had killed him.
This is not where our story ends, because if Rasputin was anything it was not a quitter. Understandably, the authorities wanted to get ride of Rasputin’s body, so they could put everyone at ease that he was gone for good. His body was taken to the woods in Saint Petersburg, where for an curtain call on his life, the mystical Rasputin would once again come to life. He sat up, and tried to move as his body was being burned.
15. Challenge To A Duel
James Bowie, an American pioneer and namesake of the bowie knife, for being known to carry around a 9-inch knife with him at all times, was a man who was extremely hard to kill.
One day Bowie was aiding a duel, when it abruptly ended in a hand shake. The crowd was understandably upset, and drunk, so they got a little rowdy. The result was Bowie getting shot in the hip. Bowie spotted the shooter and pounced on him. The man fired away, and hit Bowie three times. This only slowed him down, as the man had to hit Bowie on the head with the gun to stop him.
Seeing Bowie wounded on the ground, his old rival, Major Norris Wright, saw a chance to end his life. He shot and unfortunately missed, so Bowie shot him. The now injured Wright grabbed his cane and stabbed Bowie in the chest.
Bowie lay motionless on the dirt road. A gloating Wright tried to wiggle his cane out, but needed a bit of leverage. That’s when he made the mistake of a lifetime. He stepped on Bowie’s chest, and “deadman” got a grip on his ankle.
With the cane impaled in his chest, Bowie began to disembowel Wright with his trusty hunting knife.
16. Canadian Gangster
Richard Blass was a Canadian gangster, yes that is a thing. In true Canadian fashion he was going to use his powers for “good” by attempting to obliterate the mafia. Word got around, and a hit placed out on him.
The first attempt at his life was at a bar where he was getting drunk. Men came in and opened fire on the joint. Blass dodged the bullets and escaped unharmed. Two weeks later, another attempt was made. He was sleeping in a motel room when someone set the place on fire. You guessed it, he walked away unharmed.
The third attempt on his life was a “success”. He was shot in the head, and two shots in the back. This sent him to the hospital, but he refused to die, earning him the nickname “Le Chat” for seeminly having nine lives.
Blass went on to live his life of crime, robbing banks, and committing murders. His life came to an end after being outnumbered and surround by police after he hiding in a small cottage. When he attempted to fight himself out of the situation, the police shot him…. twenty times, finally killing him.