Welcome to Unexplained Extra, with me Richard McLean Smith, where for the weeks in between

episodes we look good stories and ideas that for one reason or other didn't make it into

the previous show.

In last week's episode, Death's Pale Flag, we explored the Haitian zombie myth through

the seemingly miraculous story of Clevver's Narcees.

In 1964, Clevver's was declared dead by two separate doctors and subsequently buried

underground, only to reappear in his home village 18 years later, very much alive.

Some thanks to the prevalence of the zombie myth in Haitian folklore were convinced that

Clevver's had himself returned from death as a zombie.

In 1982, ethno-botanist Wade Davis travelled to Haiti to investigate Clevver's story.

As it turned out, according to Davis, Clevver was just one of many individuals who would

have fallen victim to an apparent zombification process being carried out by voodoo priests

and returned for money.

After analysing a powder thought to have been used in this process, Wade found it to contain

traces of tetrodotoxin, a potent neurotoxin extracted from pufferfish.

Although even a small dose of tetrodotoxin is lethal to humans, with just the right amount,

its effects, including severe paralysis and the slowing of the body's metabolic rate,

can lead the recipient appearing clinically dead before they eventually recover from it.

With this thought weighed, account for Clevver's apparent resurrection.

Regardless of what exactly had happened, that Clevver's could ever have been declared dead

in the first place raises a deeply unsettling question.

Just how exactly do we determine whether somebody has well and truly died?

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