When John Harrison received a telephone call telling him his partner Anne Saville had died he headed to the hospital to say a heartbreaking goodbye. But nothing could have prepared him for the shock he got when he took her hand and discovered it was still warm.

Ann, aged 71 was being treated at University Hospital in Leeds after being diagnosed with leukaemia in December.

While her story may have been a medical mistake rather than a miracle, here are some genuinely remarkable recoveries by people who cheated death around the globe.

Two weeks ago Walter Williams, from Mississippi, made a miraculous recovery - hours after being declared dead by staff at the hospice where he was spending his final days.

Coroner Dexter Howard accompanied funeral home staff to collect the body on Wednesday, February 26th, and checked there was no pulse.

But when Walter arrived at the funeral home the body bag began to move.

Mr Howard said: “We got him into the embalming room and we noticed his legs beginning to move, like kicking. He also began to do a little breathing.”

The funeral home promptly called for an ambulance and apparently Howard had a defibrillator fitted inside his chest that restarted his heart after he was placed inside the body bag.

Russian grandmother Lyudmila Steblistskaya has an eerie habit of returning to life.

The 61 year-old from Siberia has twice been declared dead by doctors.

On the first occasion in November 2011 her daughter Anastasia spent 60,000 roubles (£1,223) buying flowers, a casket, food for the mourners and arranging for a grave to be dug.

But when she went to collect her mother’s body she was told the autopsy had not gone ahead - because her mother was alive and sitting up in bed.

Anastasia told Journalists: ‘My head was so fuzzy that I didn’t even think about getting back into the room, and hugging mum. Or asking her about what happened.

“Instead I started calling everyone, saying things like “Er, sorry. Can you please stop digging the grave. Ah, is it done? OK... well, there won’t be a funeral, my mother is alive.”

Just under a year later in October 2012 Lyudmila, who has a history of heart problems, appeared to die again for several hours before doctors brought her back to life.

A grieving Egyptian family got a shock when they discovered the ‘body’ they were about to bury was still alive.

They were so convinced that 28 year-old waiter Hamdi Hafez al-Nubi was dead they had washed him ready for burial in March 2012.

They then called a doctor to the family home near the historic city of Luxor to sign the death certificate.

On arrival the shocked medic found Mr al-Nubi was still warm and breathing.

His mother promptly fainted when she heard the news and instead of cancelling the funeral the mourners turned the party into a celebration of his ‘resurrection’.

Neighbours who found Chinese grandmother Li Xiufeng in her bed could have been forgiven for believing she was dead.

After all she was 95 years old and had suffered a head injury two weeks earlier when she tripped and fill at her home in the village of Liulou in Beiliu in February 2012.

Neighbour Chen Qingwang said: “She didn’t get up, so I came up to wake her up. No matter how hard I pushed her and called her name she had no reactions.”

As part of the funeral preparations Mrs Xuifeng was laid in a coffin in the house for several days, but her neighbour decided not to nail down the lid.

And it was a good job too.

Four days later - the day before the burial - Mr Qingwang found the coffin empty and Mrs Xuifeng stood in the kitchen cooking.

However, it wasn’t a completely happy ending as local traditional demands that when a person dies all their belongings must be burned, so Mrs Xuifeng was left with no possessions.

Baby Cohan Jones cheated death before he was even born.

When mum Alex was six months pregnant she was given the devastating news that doctors could not find her baby’s heartbeat.

She spent six agonising hours in labour expecting a stillbirth and planning her baby’s funeral.
But seconds after little Cohan arrived in July 2011 midwives were stunned to see he was breathing weakly and wiggling his toes.

Alex, from Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, said: “I just couldn’t bear the thought of seeing my dead child. I just wanted to shut my eyes, hoping somehow to block out the pain.

“Mum heard a little groan and saw his toes wiggle. I was so much in shock that I didn’t notice at first. Then the midwife realised he was alive and things went crazy – suddenly there were doctors everywhere.”

While all stories of resurrection have a touch of the supernatural about them, the tale of Brazilian baby Yasmin Gomes is more miraculous than most.

The infant was pronounced death at birth at the Lincoln Graca hospital in south Brazil in July last year.

After doctors failed to revive the little girl the nurse decided to lie the body on the altar in the hospital chapel instead of sending her to the refrigerated morgue.

And three hours later her grieving mother Jennifer da Silva Gomes, 22, arrived to take her away only to discover she was breathing.

Nurse Ana Claudia Oliveira said: “I can assure you, the child was dead. Her pupils didn’t respond to light. I saw it with my own eyes. She was blue all over, completely dead.

“She’s a little angel, a child. I just couldn’t face the thought of her being sent down to the morgue.’