"She's Really, Most Sincerely Dead!"

Oh.  Wait.

Despite the doctors' assurances, the sons could not bring themselves to switch off respiratory support and she was transferred to another wing of the hospital.

That afternoon, staff in the new clinic said they had noticed encouraging signs of brain activity.

Finally, some 14 hours after she had officially died, Mrs Paillard suddenly woke up. Turning to her incredulous son, Sébastien, she said: "Ah, I feel so good, I had a wonderful sleep."

"To think we were about to give permission to kill our mother," Mr Paillard told France's Sud Ouest newspaper, adding that until now his family had full confidence in hospital staff.

"It's a sort of miracle," said Yves Noël, the head of the Bordeaux Nord Polyclinic. "It's unheard of."

"One of the doctors who examined the patient has 25 years experience in casualty and identified all the signs of clinical death. Both doctors (who examined her) conferred with their colleagues," he said.

One possible explanation, he added, was that Mrs Paillard may have had an epileptic fit and passed out, leading to the "appearance of death".

The family is considering legal action against the hospital.

Mrs Paillard said: "I was totally unaware what had happened but I think my sons are the ones most in shock."

Not to imply she's a witch or anything, of course, but the song sprang to mind.  A little too sure of themselves, apparently.  So when next someone starts explaining how we need death panels, some people are just gonna have to pull the plug on grandma, and so forth--just remember this story.