Back from the 'death' at his own funeral

A BRAZILIAN bricklayer reportedly killed in a car crash shocked his mourning family by showing up alive at his funeral.

Relatives of Ademir Jorge Goncalves, 59, had identified him as the victim of a Sunday night car crash in Parana state in southern Brazil, police said.

As is customary in Brazil, the funeral was held the following day, which happened to be the holiday of Finados, when Brazilians visit cemeteries to honor the dead.

What family members didn't know was that Goncalves had spent the night at a truck stop talking with friends over drinks of a sugarcane liquor known as cachaca, his niece Rosa Sampaio told the O Globo newspaper. He did not get word about his own funeral until it was already happening on Monday morning.

A police spokesman in the town of Santo Antonio da Platina said Goncalves rushed to the funeral to let family members know he was not dead.

"The corpse was badly disfigured, but dressed in similar clothing," said the police spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "People are afraid to look for very long when they identify bodies, and I think that is what happened in this case."

Sampaio told O Globo that some family members were not sure the body was Goncalves.

The body was correctly identified later on Monday, the police spokesman said, and has already been buried in another state.

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