Dead Ernest

Originally Aired: March 24, 1949

Suspense #333, "Dead Ernest," stars Pat O'Brien in a harrowing tale of life and death hanging by a thread. Ernest Bowers, a 34-year-old man suffering from catalepsy, is struck by a car at a busy intersection. The accident appears minor—just a cut on the forehead—but Ernest's condition mimics death so convincingly that the ambulance doctor pronounces him dead at the scene. What no one realizes is that Ernest carries vital identification explaining his rare disease: a letter in his jacket pocket and a silver bracelet warning "Do not embalm me. I am not dead." But in the chaos following the accident, both items vanish from the scene.

Two young boys, Robert Manelli and Tommy Stoner, find the bracelet and melt it down to sell for baseball money, destroying the warning. Meanwhile, Honest Jerry Murdoch from a local swap shop picks up Ernest's blood-stained jacket and quickly sells it to an unsuspecting customer for five dollars. As Ernest lies in the hospital morgue, pronounced dead and headed for autopsy, his wife remains unreachable. With his identification gone and the clock ticking toward the moment doctors will begin their work, Ernest's only hope for survival slips further away with each passing minute.