One man pulled off a stunt worthy of a film plot after he faked his own death in order to 'teach his family a lesson' - and then rocked up at his own funeral in a helicopter.
David Baerten, 45, who is from Belgium, decided to go to extreme measures to hammer home the importance of staying in touch with each other to his family.
He decided to fake his own death after feeling "unappreciated" by some of his relatives - who were in for a bit of a shock when they found out he wasn't actually dead.
Luckily David, who posts on TikTok under the name Ragnar le Fou, had a film crew on hand to capture the unbelievable moment as it happened.
David had pulled off the outlandish stunt by getting his daughter to break the news of his "death" with a tribute on social media.
One of his daughters wrote, according to reports: "Rest in peace, Daddy. I will never stop thinking about you. Why is life so unfair? Why you? You were going to be a grandfather and you still had your whole life ahead of you. I love you! We love you! We will never forget you."
His "funeral" was then arranged to take place near Liege, where friends and family gathered to mourn David's death.
However, the very much alive 45-year-old was then seen arriving in a helicopter which touched down in a field near where the mourners were gathered, and his loved ones soon ran over to embrace him.
The moment was shared by another TikTok user by the name of Thomas Faut, who also shared another clip of an emotional relative sobbing as he hugged David after seeing he was still alive.
He wrote in the caption: "You got us, I swear I was crying and then I had the shock, buddy we love you very much."
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Though David did not share footage of the funeral himself, he told French chat show Touche Pas a Mon Poste (TPMP) that he had decided to orchestrate the stunt as he felt "unappreciated" by some of his loved ones.
While it's no doubt an impressive feat to be able to pull off your own funeral while still alive, many people in the comments criticized him for being "cruel" to his family by letting them grieve for him by making them believe he was dead.
David addressed why he had chosen to go to such extreme measures on his own TikTok account, explaining per The Times that he was "hurt" that he "never gets invited to anything" by his family.
"Nobody sees me. We all grew apart. I felt unappreciated. That’s why I wanted to give them a life lesson and show them that you shouldn’t wait until someone is dead to meet up with them," he explained.
While "only half" of his family attended the fake funeral itself, David revealed that other relatives got in touch with him since, adding: "That proves who really cares about me. Those who didn’t come did contact me to meet up. So in a way, I did win."
David also revealed on TPMP that his wife had been aware of his plan and had tried to stop him from going ahead with the stunt.
According to Indy100, David had even let his children believe he was really dead for "a couple of days" before finally coming clean after his film crew stipulated that they'd only document the stunt if his children and sister knew he wasn't actually dead - though David claims they "half knew" it wasn't real from the start.
"As soon as I started receiving messages from people and videos of them crying, I wished I could cancel the whole thing, but it was too late," David said. "I asked myself, 'Why have you done this?’ But it was too late.
"I’m sorry to all the people I hurt. I hate hurting people."
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