‘Resurrected’ Russian solider Igor Kononenko, 37 has recalled the moment a duty guard promptly fainted – believing he had seen a ghost after they thought he had died
A Russian soldier who was “killed by Ukrainian tank fire” stunned morgue staff by climbing out of his black body bag.
Igor Kononenko, 37 has recalled the moment a duty guard promptly fainted, believing he had seen a ghost after they thought he had died. The “resurrected” solider said: “I shook him awake and asked, ‘Buddy, what’s wrong?’ He turned even whiter’. I walked down the corridor and met a nurse. Her eyes widened and she said: ‘You’re dead!’ As it turned out later, she was the one who took me into the morgue.”
Kononenko – call sign Katun – struggled to understand what had happened to him. It took him time to “come to my senses” after realising he had been declared dead and put in the morgue in Donetsk.
He admitted: “I was furious and scared. How did I end up in the morgue? Who came up with the idea of stuffing me in a body bag? The doctor showed me all the documents and then said that this happens, but rarely. Most likely, it was a clinical death. I was lucky. Afterwards, the emotions subsided a little, but not for long.”
He recalled that he had been under fire from a Ukrainian army in Putin-occupied territory when a tank shell hit the wall of the house where he was hiding. “The blast wave threw me back so much that I broke through two walls with my body,” he said. “I was fortunate that the walls were not brick but clay, soft, so it didn’t kill me.”
Reports say that as he was transported to military hospital his “heart stopped” and doctors “pronounced him dead”. The resurrected soldier said: “The doctor touched me, and I was already cold. “They attached a device to check, but there were no indicators [of life]. I was dead.
“And then everything was simple – in a bag and to the morgue. What happened next – doctors are still trying to explain.” He was later told: “This happens once in a million cases.” Kononenko, from Surgut in Siberia, was moved to hospital and “nurses went to Igor’s ward as if on an excursion”, said a report.
His wife had been told first that he was in a coma and later that he had died, he said. She was “happy” to hear his voice again – but furious with the medic who had registered him as dead.
“The doctor ….called my wife after my resurrection,” he said. “She told him everything she thought about medicine and his professional abilities. I barely calmed her down. She is a fighter.” Despite his astonishing story, the soldier was forced back to the frontline as soon as he fully recovered. He was later wounded again, and is again in hospital, only now telling his story.
