A 50-year-old South African man woke up inside a mortuary over the weekend and screamed to be let out – scaring away attendants who thought he was a ghost.
His family presumed he was dead when they could not wake him on Saturday night and contacted a private morgue in a rural village in the Eastern Cape.
He spent almost 24 hours inside the morgue, the region’s health department spokesman told the Sapa news agency.
The two attendants later returned and called for an ambulance.
The man – whose identity has been withheld – was treated in hospital for dehydration.
“Doctors put him under observation and concluded he was stable,” Eastern Cape health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said.
“He did not need further treatment.”
Mr Kupelo said the man woke up at 1700 local time (1500 GMT) on Sunday, demanding to be let out of the chilly morgue in Libode village, frightening the attendants on duty.
“At first the men ran for their lives,” said Mr Kupelo.
Officials have urged the public to contact doctors or the emergency services so they can they can pronounce someone dead before calling an undertaker.
“You begin to you ask yourself how many other people have died like that in a morgue,” said Mr Kupelo.
“We need to [get] the message across to all South Africans that it is very wrong for them to conclude on their own that a person has died,” he said.
My grandma told me it happened in her village in DA. They were carrying the coffin to the burying site, when the coffin started shaking, or swaying violently, they put the coffin down and ran, but one brave man went back with a crowbar, and ripped the lid of and helped the man out of the coffin
The same thing happened in DA some years ago. So really people might have died like that.
Well at least the health department in that area in Dominica is in tact because it is compulsory for a doctor to determine death before being transported to the mourge….so guess this law need to be implemented all over.
Strange things happen and wonders never cease. People really have to be careful. This should never have occurred but for the ignorance of some people.
I must relate this story to my friend.
He could have been very tired and was in a deep sleep. He may have taken a pill which caused him not to be able to wake up then.
How often we are in a deep sleep and it is difficult to wake up. There are times any noise or a telephone ring could wake me up and there are times I could sleep through the noise, the telephone rings and even a thunder storm. I do not take medication.
I recall what my mother said when she saw my niece, as a baby, sleeping that “Sleep is the sister of death.”
All of us know that when we are sleeping, we are dead to the world and what may be occurring around us.
Recall the article of the woman who was being buried and woke up. This gave her a heart attack. She was taken to the hospital where she died.
Commenting about this article I stated what a non-Dominican friend informed me about her mother which occurred in a West Indian island, that she felt her mother did not die at home as thought and that she was taken to the funeral home and was suspicious that she may have been given a pill which killed her.
Keep in mind those homes/parlours make an exorbitant sum of money when people die. They get rich on this. Thye may not want to lose the opportunity to make a few thousand dollars.
It is a miracle that the man woke up from that freezer. He was fortunate too that he was placed in a cold storage and that he was not yet prepared for burial. He would have been a dead man. The family must be happy that he is alive.
He probably has a strong heart, that he did not suffer a heart attack by the shock of finding himself in a cold storage.
Thanks DNO for this news and others.
Thats so true a lot of people are dead after they were buried becaues when it didnot have morgue is die today buried next day so some people died after they were buried
SOME YEARS AGO IT HAPPENED IN P.M.H. THE GUY WAS AN ALCOHOLIC SO HE WENT INTO AN ALCOHOLIC COMA, FOUND LYING IN THE STREET HE WAS BROUGHT TO THE MORGUE,AT THAT TIME IT WAS NOT NECESSARY TO PASS THROUGH CASUALTY TO BE PROUNCED DEAD, SO HE WAS TAKEN STRAIGHT TO THE MORGUE.WRAPPED IN A WHITE SHEET AND SECURED AS DEAD. WHEN THE ALCOHOL EFFECT WORN OUT HE WOKE UP AND STATRED SCREAMING,OFFCOURSE EVERYONE WHO HEARD RAN.THERE AFTER IT WAS MADE COMPULSARY THAT A DR PRONOUNCE ONE DEAD BEFORE BIENG TAKEN TOO THE MORGUE.INSPITE THAT HE STILL CONTINUED TO DRINK.
It has begun.. Torchwood Miracle Day!!!
trust me i don’t think i would have been able to make it to work… this is very frightning. But it real funny.. i wish i could have seen the looks on their faces at the moment. i hope we take this story as a lesson.
i wish i was there i woulda make sure the dead remain dead
@ Hitman
You are indeed a hit man.
Did you mean “the supposedly dead man…?” Anyway your silly comment made me laugh. 
lol so funny, … kill him again?…twice? awa wi..
what a story
some years aback it happened in dca. d dead man get up asking d security officer if he got any more coffee left. d officer run away so quick.. lol… dead mann askin him for coffee. oh no..
Ya that’s true and some say deceased Eustace Francis was no dead when they put him in the mogue because when they returned to check on him his arm/hand was not the same way as they put him and that he may not have been dead. wellhope the authorities learn’t a lesson from that.
@gweeve
Was this man a Dominican? I know someone who is called Eustace Francis and who resides in Antigua. His wife and I are also friends. I (we) have not been in touch for some years.
If is so they used to decide if people dead in dominica, my niece would be buried long time. That child does sleep like a rock.
If my memory serves me right.. This happened in Dominica about 4 or 5 years ago. some poor guy woke up in the morgue screaming for help..The staff nearly died from fright. LMFAO
LOL. talk about waking up dead