Dead Man Called

[kechara420]

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/10149.shtml


A Belgium newspaper, Gazet van Antwerpen is reporting that the family of a recently deceased motorcyclist are suing the funeral firm they chose, after the dead mans cell phone started ringing - from inside the coffin.

The paper reports that Marc Marchal, 32, was killed when his motorbike collided with a tractor near his home town of Rochefort. Mr. Marchal was so badly injured in the accident that the undertakers advised his family that the coffin should remain closed as they said their last farewells.

The night before the funeral, the family gathered at the undertakers for a final private farewell, when they heard the sound of his cellphone ringing from within the sealed coffin. Several distressed members of the family had to leave the funeral home whilst staff rushed to remove the cell phone.

The family is now suing, claiming that the undertakers were negligent in preparing their relative for burial.

[Darth Buddha]

This should have never gotten to a suit... the funeral home should have refunded some part of the cost -- perhaps doing it AT cost to demonstrate thier own distress in the matter (the percentage of profit in this country is outrageous - don't know about Belgium).

BTW kechara420, I absolutely love your avatar. May ask where it is from?

[AgentSun]

i tend to believe that companies, no matter where they are located, take the biggest measures to solve the problems they have as fast as possible, as to prevent things like this from happening. a lawsuit is just in the long run more drawn out and more bad publicity for them. if they had refunded money or compensated quickly, they would've been able to prevent more bad press.

but i have to wonder...who called?

[Digger]

Umm, but isn't the family the people who give the funeral director the clothes they want their deceased relative to wear? I would assume the cell phone was in a pocket. The funeral director surely has seen many odd things given to them to include as part of the burial, and just chalked the cell phone up to one of these situations.

[Darth Buddha]

Good point, Digger, that's true for open casket burials... I wonder about closed casket.

[Tiriel]

Actually, coming to think of it: Wouldn't it be a really cool bonus to add cheap cell-phones to the funeral arrangements? I know in the US people get embalmed, so by the time you get buried there is no way in hell you're still alife, but in Europe that's not the case. So a SWITCHED OFF(!!!!) cell-phone could serve as a modern dead-ringer...

Do I sound like I'm distressed by/paranoid about the idea of getting buried alife?

Love and Peace and ACK!

Tiriel :bounce:

[AgentSun]

getting buried alive...that's actually the subject of a really popular urban legend. the story goes that a man dies and requests to have a phone in his mosoleum. and a year later the daughter goes to her mother's home and finds her dead with the phone in her hand. and at the funeral she goes into her father's mosoleum where her mother is to be buried alongside him and she sees the phone off the hook.

[NYPinTA]

It doesn't say whether or not the funeral home offered any discount. I would hope that they did and maybe the family just didn't think it was enough. I would guess that it is hard to think rationally when someone in your family dies unexpectadly.

Edit: I have the same irrational fear of being buried alive. Yuck! (((shudder))) To bad 'viking funerals' are illegal over here. I like that idea.

[Shipscat]

I think the story implies that the man had the cell phone on him when he died and they didn't do anything with the body. That's why the family is upset.

[NYPinTA]

Is that possible though? Even if he was dead at the scene of the accident, doesn't the body still go to a hospital and all that? You would think that at some point his cloths were removed... even if they don't do embalming over there.... but I am guessing.

[mfa96]

I just had a Dead Poet's flashback:

*phone rings*

"It's for you sir, it's G-d."

[Shipscat]

The kid who was driving a car with my cousin's kid in it, jumped the railroad tracks, flew seventy feet, rolled the car and ended up wrapped around the tree. She lived but the funeral home came and picked him up directly from the scene.

[AgentSun]

the body would have had to go to the hospital anyways. at least here in the states, they have to determine how they died. and then they hand the body over to the family for funeral arrangements.

[Digger]

I think the story implies that the man had the cell phone on him when he died and they didn't do anything with the body. That's why the family is upset. The guy was killed in a collision with a tractor. Can you imagine any funeral home in any civilized country in the world just sticking the corpse into a box still wearing the same torn and bloodstained clothing even for a closed casket funeral? The family had to have supplied the clothing for the deceased. The phone was in the clothing. The funeral director left the phone alone becuase it was part of the items given to him by the family. The funeral director is not at fault. Case closed.

[kechara420]

Originally posted by Darth Buddha
BTW kechara420, I absolutely love your avatar. May ask where it is from? It's from a picture by artist Amy Brown. Actually, all the avatars I've had over the last month or two have been from her work. I *love* her stuff! Check out these two sites for a lot of her stuff:

http://www.amybrownart.com/galleries.asp
http://www.faeryshop.com/g_ab_index.asp

[Third EYe]

I'm thinking I want solar panels to send some juice to my coffin, and I'll have some BOSE speakers installed, with whatever is the best system available, and just have talk radio pumped out all day, and rock n roll all night. That should freak some graveyard visitors out, from time to time.

[LiLOrion]

Myth Busters did an experiment about being buried alive a few weeks ago. Pretty interesting. Caskets really arent that strong once you pile all that dirt on them, even the metal ones, which is what they used.