'Dead' beekeeper 'comes back to life'

A Polish beekeeper who was declared dead and put in a coffin after a suspected heart attack was later found to be alive.

Jozef Guzy, 76, collapsed as he started work in Katowice and an undertaker took away his body after a doctor pronounced him dead, the Daily Mail reports.

A spokesman for the Regional Ambulance Service in Katowice said: "The patient was not breathing, there was no heart beat, the body had cooled - all are the characteristics of death."

Funeral director Dariusz Wysłuchato was about to seal the lid of the coffin when Jozef's wife Ludmilla asked him to remove her 'late' husband's wristwatch.

Wysłuchato said: "I touched around the neck artery and suddenly realised he wasn't dead after all. I checked again and shouted, 'It's a pulse!'.

"I had a friend check and he noticed the man was breathing. God, it was a miracle! Thank God I did not close the coffin - if I had done that it would have been a tragedy. Something touched me to touch his neck - I'm so pleased he's alive."

The same doctor who pronounced Jozef dead returned with the ambulance and confirmed that he had "come back from the dead".

Jozef said: "The undertaker saved my life. The first thing I did when I got out of hospital was take him a pot of honey."