List of Premature Obituaries - E

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• Harry Elionsky, it was reported on October 13, 1918 that he had died during the 1918 flu pandemic. Several reference books still list his death in 1918 as fact such as: "Hunting the 1918 flu: one scientist's search for a killer virus" and "The plague of the Spanish lady: the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919". Both repeat the error from the 1918 papers. He went on to set records for distance swimming into the 1920s.
• Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother's death was erroneously announced in the Australian media in 1993 after a London-based Sky News employee saw an internal rehearsal for her future death (one of many conducted by the UK media over the years). Thinking it was for real, he phoned his mother in Australia with the 'news', who passed it on to the media. The time zone difference may have made it difficult for the Australian media to check the story during UK night-time. The employee was dismissed for the mistake, but then won a lawsuit for wrongful dismissal. (Fragments of the Queen Mother's life history also appeared in several other world figures' premature obituaries in the CNN.com incident.) The Queen Mother died on 30 March 2002.
• Queen Elizabeth II's death was announced on BBC Radio West Midlands on May 17, 2010. Host Danny Kelly played God Save the Queen, then announced that "Queen Elizabeth II has now died." He was stopped by his producer, and later admitted that the announcement was meant as a joke: the Queen Elizabeth II who had died was a Facebook user who used the Queen's name. The chairman of Mediawatch-UK said in response, "Because it's the Queen and they treated it like a big announcement, it makes things worse ... It's the BBC we are talking about here, and there's a certain expectation from them."
• Marjorie Halcrow Erskine (also known as Marjorie Elphinstone): having presumably been declared dead, this resident of Chirnside (possibly Ardtannies), Scotland was presumed dead and buried in 1674 in a shallow grave by a sexton, who returned later to steal her jewellery. When he tried to cut off her finger to remove a ring, she revived and let out a groan when robbers tried to steal it. They fled, and she walked home.
• Nora Ephron: the American writer, who was in poor health, was falsely declared dead in a report from gossip columnist Liz Smith on June 26, 2012. Ephron died later that day.
• David Ervine: the Northern Irish politician suffered a heart attack and brain haemorrhage on 7 January 2007. The RTÉ News at 9pm led with the news that he had died, correcting the error later in the bulletin. RTÉ's web site also reported him dead. Ervine died the following afternoon.