Declared dead by doctors, then rescued from the mortuary, Freddie Maguire has made such a strong recovery that he has been nicknamed Jesus Christ.

Mr Maguire, 47, from Dublin’s north inner city, was pronounced dead by doctors at the Mater Hospital after they fought for 30 minutes to save his life on Easter Day.

Mr Maguire, who has learning difficulties, was being treated for a separate condition when he suffered a heart attack. He was moved to the intensive care unit and treated by a team of medical staff, who pronounced him dead.

Mr Maguire’s relatives were coming to terms with their loss when they were informed that he was, in fact, alive. A member of staff saw his hand move as he was about to be put into a mortuary refrigerator.

Frances Maguire, his aunt, said: “He’s all right now and he’s back the way he was before this terrible thing took place.

“His recovery was very slow at first and he’s still on medication, but he’s back home living with his uncle and he visits me every night.

“The doctors all pronounced him dead. It’s disgraceful and very upsetting. I don’t think they should get away with it.” Friends and neighbours have dubbed Mr Maguire Jesus Christ because of his seemingly miraculous resurrection at Easter.

Mrs Maguire was in the Mater Hospital herself receiving medical attention when the incident occurred.

She said: “We’re a very close family. I was in the hospital at the time and I wanted to check myself out of there after it, but the family said it would be no good.”

According to the Evening Herald newspaper, Mr Maguire’s brothers travelled over from England immediately when told of his death and funeral arrangements were underway.

“My granddaughter came up to me that night when I was outside having a smoke and she said, ‘Freddie is alive’. I nearly choked,” Mrs Maguire said. “I didn’t believe her until I saw him with my own eyes.

“They were about to put him into an ice box. Imagine if they had. Thank God that nurse saw his hand moving.

“I tell you, when I die I want to be buried with a mobile phone. And they better make sure I’m dead.”

Mrs Maguire described her cousin as “a lovely person” and “a real hard grafter”.

She added: “He does the Lotto for everyone, he’s worked handing out newspapers, he’s been an ice-cream man and he’s worked in a bar cellar. He’s tough and he never complains.”

A spokesman for the hospital said that an internal investigation was continuing and that its results would be made known at the end of the month.

The investigation will examine what steps were taken to save Mr Maguire’s life, what checks for vital signs were carried out and when he was declared dead.

It will also look into when he was found to be alive and who made the startling discovery.

A source close to the Mater Hospital said at the time: “This man certainly was pronounced dead and, sometime later, I understand he was very much alive.

“Needless to say, the hospital is very perturbed at what happened.”

Hey, I’m back

— Hit by a car in 1976, George Rodonaia, a Soviet doctor, was left in a mortuary for three days. He showed obvious signs of life only after a doctor began to make an incision in his stomach as part of a postmortem examination. He claimed to be conscious for much of the experience, saying: “All about me there was darkness . . . I remembered Descartes’s famous line, ‘I think, therefore I am’. And it was then I knew I was still alive”

— Allison Burchell, an Australian, has been pronounced dead three times, and woken up in a mortuary twice. She suffers from a condition called narcolepsy-cataplexy, in which the heartbeat slows and breathing becomes increasingly shallow. When she came round the first time, 50 years ago at the age of 21, she scared a mortuary technician by asking to be taken to hospital

— The Victorian teenager George Hayward was struck by a pitchfork while working on a farm. The wound became infected, he was pronounced dead and then buried. After the funeral two doctors decided to inspect his body – in case he had died of an infectious disease. Just before the postmortem began, Hayward opened his eyes. He made a full recovery, and lived to the age of 84

Sources: Buried Alive, by Rodney Davies (2000); Near Death Experience Research Foundation; agencies

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