A 50-year-old South African man thought to be dead woke
up in a chilly morgue on Sunday and shouted to be let out, scaring
off two attendants who thought he was a ghost, local media
reported.
"His family thought he had died," health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo
told the Sapa news agency.
"The family called a private undertaker who took what they
thought was a dead body to the morgue, but the man woke up inside
the morgue on Sunday at 5:00 pm and screamed, demanding to be taken
out of the cold place."
This caused two mortuary attendants on duty to flee the building
in the small town of Libode in the rural Eastern Cape as they
thought it was a ghost.
After calling for help and returning to find the man alive, an
ambulance was sent to fetch the man who had "been exposed to
extreme cold for nearly 24 hours" said Kupelo.
He said the public should not assume that a sick person had died
and contact a mortuary, the report said.
"Doctors, emergency workers and the police are the only people
who have a right to examine the patients and determine if they are
dead or not."