List of Premature Obituaries - W

W

• Terance Edward Walker: Said to have died on the operating table November 2007 in Newcastle, England, whilst receiving a heart transplant. It was later determined that he had broken into the hospital morgue and replaced a toe tag with one containing his own information. He is believed to have fled to Australia or New Zealand. The cremated body that replaced Walker was later found to belong to 51-year-old Douglas Nicolas Gow, who had died of a drug overdose. The Walker family have never accepted Terance's fleeing and are actively pursuing a legal result so his "widow" can claim a military pension.
• Matthew Wall: On 2 October 1571, a pallbearer dropped his coffin on the way to the funeral, waking him up. His 'resurrection' is still celebrated each year in Braughing, Hertfordshire.
• Elsie Waring: in 1963, this 35-year-old was certified dead by three doctors at Willesden General Hospital, London. Several hours later she gasped and started breathing while being lifted into her coffin.
• William James Wanless reported dead in India.
• Gerard Way: Frontman of My Chemical Romance. Was said to have died in a car accident when someone incorrectly put it on Wikipedia. Way released a statement on the bands website saying 'I heard a rumor that I died in a car accident. I didn't.'
• Kate Webb: in 1971 the journalist was part of a group captured in the Cambodian jungle by North Vietnamese troops. Official reports claimed that a body that had been found and cremated was hers, and a box of bones said to be hers was delivered to Reuters. The New York Times published an obituary. She emerged from captivity over three weeks later, having endured forced marches, interrogations, and two strains of malaria. Webb died in 2007.
• Harry Delyne Weed, the inventor of Weed non-skid tire chains, was reported dead in numerous publications (including Time magazine and the New York Herald Tribune) in 1927 after a reporter for the Jackson, Michigan Citizen Patriot wrote that the recently deceased Mrs. Alice Weed from Jackson had been the inventor's widow. It later emerged that Alice Weed was no relation, and that both the inventor and his wife were alive and well.
• Kanye West: was the subject of an Internet hoax news report on 20 October 2009 claiming that he had been killed in a car crash. The rumour quickly spread via social networking websites such as Twitter, prompting West's girlfriend Amber Rose to respond "This 'RIP Kanye West' topic is not funny and it's NOT TRUE!"
• Alan Whicker (journalist), while reporting on the Korean War. He was flying with an aerial spotter in a Piper Aztec plane behind enemy lines, as part of a story. Though his plane landed safely, a similar craft was shot down on the same day, and was assumed to be Whicker's plane. The resulting newspaper obituary commented on his lack of achievement (Whicker then being far less well-known than he is now).
• Betty White: On July 7, 2009, a Today Show on-site correspondent covering Michael Jackson's memorial service from Forest Lawn Memorial Park erroneously named White as one of the famous celebrities buried there. Today host Meredith Vieira was quick to correct the error at the end of the report, stating that the correspondent likely meant to name Bette Davis instead. White is still alive and continues to actively work in the entertainment industry.
• Jaleel White: In June 2006, an internet rumor was spread via email that White had committed suicide. The email contained a fake Associated Press report stating that White was found dead in his Los Angeles apartment after shooting himself. The report, which contained fake quotes from former co-stars and associates, also claimed that White left behind a suicide note that contained Steve Urkel's popular catchphrase, "Did I do that?" No legitimate news outlets ever picked up the story. Five months after the hoax, White addressed the rumor stating, "I don’t even know what to say about that darned thing. As much as you try to live your life right, you’re gonna get sucker-punched now and then. That was my sucker punch back in June".
• Slim Whitman: the country singer was reported dead in January 2008 by a radio DJ and by the Nashville Tennessean's website, apparently sparked by rumours he had died. "It seems like every 10 years something weird happens like that", he said; in a previous strange incident, a song of Whitman's was used to repel invading aliens in the film Mars Attacks!
• Philip Williams: in June 1982, this British soldier was knocked unconscious by an explosion during the Battle of Mount Tumbledown in the Falklands War, and left for dead. When he came to, the rest of the British soldiers had gone. Williams' parents were informed of his 'death' and a memorial service held for him. It took him nearly two months to find his way back to civilisation, braving extreme weather. He was then criticized by the media and fellow soldiers, who accused him of desertion.
• Ken Williamson, an Olympic track-and-field judge, collapsed outside Madison Square Garden in 2004 from a heart attack, and was said by officials and a colleague to have died. However, he was revived with a defibrillator and taken to hospital.
• Rich Williams, guitarist in the band Kansas, whose obituary was published in a number of New England newspapers after the death of Eric de Boer of Kingston, New Hampshire. de Boer had been impersonating Williams for decades, claiming that after returning from Vietnam (where he had been held as a POW) he had joined Kansas, using the name "Rich Williams" as a stage name. The real Williams wrote in an e-mail sent to The Topeka Capital-Journal that he had known about the impersonation for five years and thought it was "really wacky stuff", but added that he respected de Boer for his service in Vietnam. It was later discovered that there was no evidence that de Boer had ever been in the military, let alone that he had been a Vietnam POW.
• Edward Osborne Wilson (biologist and environmentalist), listed as dead in a 2005 San Francisco Chronicle article.
• Mara Wilson (actress) was listed as dead on the Internet Movie Database in 2000, with the cause being "broken neck".
• Norman Wisdom: the British comedian was reported dead by Sky News on December 28, 2008, with a pre-prepared video obituary having been accidentally published. Wisdom died on 4 October 2010.
• John Wooden: an online picture gallery of the legendary basketball coach on The Washington Post's website on June 3, 2010 was headlined "John Wooden dies at 99". Wooden was at the time hospitalized in grave condition. Wooden died the next day.