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from the 'dead'

by MELISSA ROLLOCK

SOME PEOPLE call him the Ghost Who Walks, some the Living Dead and others Lazarus.

All of these nicknames are quite fitting for 46-year-old Reynzill Lorenzo Scantlebury who claims he has done what no other man has been able to do - he got up and walked out of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) morgue.

But it wasn't a miraculous resurrection because according to him, "I was never dead".

As Scantlebury, a car washer, recounts, it all began sometime last month after suffering one of his frequent epileptic seizures. He was walking somewhere in the vicinity of Green Hill, St Michael, not too far from his Whitehall, St Michael residence when he started to feel ill.

"I felt a seizure coming on, so I took one of my tablets. I usually walk with them. But the next thing I knew, Bruggadung! I was on the ground," he recalled.

He doesn't know much about what transpired after that but when he woke up, he was lying on a hospital bed.

"This female doctor was standing over me and she told me that she was going to release me. So I left and was headed towards the Globe Cinema [Upper Roebuck Street, The City], when I was upside down on the ground again.

"When I wake up, I was inside what I thought was a dark room; black and cold. So, I started kicking and this thing I was in slide out like a drawer. I look around and I see a man there sitting down eating.

"He was wearing a white hat, white shirt and white pants. I look around to see if I see a blanket because it was really cold. I didn't see any so I sat up and I asked the man, 'Excuse me, boss, you got a blanket?' At that time, I didn't know where I was.

"And the man sit down with a plate of food in he hand with all of he eyes open and he mouth with all the food in it open wide when he see the draw open. I keep asking him where my blanket? And he wouldn't answer me," recalled Scantlebury.

As he related, he stepped out of the drawer and turned around to gaze upon what looked like a huge refrigerator with a lot of drawers. He was still dazed and it did not dawn on him that he was in a morgue.

When Scantlebury looked down, he realised he was wearing only a disposable diaper and a toe tag on his right foot.

"I popped it off [the tag], look at the man, tell he that I ask he for a blanket and he ain't pay me no mind so he could have it and I pelt it at he and I left.

"I walk out. When I walk out, I ask somebody where I was and they told me I just come out of the morgue and the man in there, he was told, was the morgue technician.

"I kept walking; it was night-time and I walked as far as where Marvo Manning live [in Hindsbury Road, St Michael] opposite Solidarity House. A woman came to me - not Marvo Manning - and I told her I hungry that I just come from the hospital and I wanted something to eat.

"She asked me how a big man like me could have on a pamper so I kept walking until I get home.

"It is a good thing I wake up in time because someone told me that the morgue technician would've been getting ready to cut me," he said.

Since leaving hospital, Scantlebury has told his incredible story to his friends and acquaintances. There are huge chunks of information missing from his story because he does not remember much as a result of his seizures. But there are burning questions he said he would like answered.

"As far as I hear, I had no pulse, no breath, no nothing when I blacked out.

"Everybody telling me that I must've been in a coma, I just don't know. I don't know how long I was in hospital; it might have been days, it might have been weeks, I don't know.

"I don't feel good about what happened to me, but what can I do? Nobody is taking me seriously. All I know is that I would like somebody to tell me exactly what happened to me and what is going on. Really and truly I don't know; I am at a loss," said Scantlebury, who in addition to epilepsy, suffers from rectal cancer and has slurred speech and limited mobility from a stroke.

He said he shouldn't be working but needs to wash cars to remain financially independent.

A prominent physician who preferred anonymity, told the SUNDAY SUN that while it was unlikely, it was not impossible that Scantlebury was pronounced dead and sent to the morgue by error.

"If that happens then that would have to be a mistake. It is unlikely but anything is possible. Usually, whichever doctor is on duty would do that [pronounce someone dead]. The doctor on duty would assess the person and if they are not breathing and they don't have any pulse then the doctor can pronounce the person as dead.

Mistake possible

"However, the physician may be inexperienced in doing that job; a new intern could make a mistake like that, but usually you do certain checks. You check for a pulse, respiration, reflex, reaction to light and any movement of the body as well as the temperature of the body.

"If the person is on ICU on a monitor, you look for the heart rate and that is easy. But on the general ward, it is unlikely that something like that could happen," said the doctor.

He added that if an individual passed away at a location other than the hospital, the police would be called in and then the police doctor, who goes to the scene to pronounce the person dead whether it was a natural or unnatural death.

Police at the District "A" Police Station said they did not have any reports of a sudden death for anyone by the name of Reynzill Scantlebury.

Management at the QEH said they would be carrying out an investigation into the matter. Communications specialist Katrinah Best said on Friday that while they had no record of a Reynzill Scantlebury, they did have a record of a Scantlebury with a similar first name and the middle name Lorenzo.

However, she said that that Scantlebury was 49 years old. She said he died on one of the C Wards on October 4, was sent to the morgue the same day, and removed from the hospital by a funeral home on October 9.

melissawickham@nationnews.com