Shocking! 'Dead' woman found alive in South Africa morgue fridge
She was declared dead after a fatal car crash.
A Gauteng woman was found alive inside a mortuary fridge where every dead people are kept by forensic officers.
She was a South African who was recovering in the hospital. The woman was taken to Carletonville morgue, in Gauteng province, having been declared dead by paramedics following a road accident.
The mis-declaraion by Distress Assist ambulance service paramedics is being investigated by the Gauteng health department‚ according to Gauteng Forensic Pathology Services CEO Dr Paul Morule.
A Carletonville mortuary source said his colleagues had loaded the bodies into the fridges and were filling in forms‚ when one returned to check on them. “When he pulled out the woman’s body‚ he saw that she was breathing.”
According to the multiple news reports, Ambulance Company Distress Alert said she had shown "no form of life".
Look at the odds, when a morgue worker returned for a final check on the women's body in the fridge, he discovered that she was breathing.
According to an official who confirmed to the BBC, the woman is now being treated in hospital after being referred by forensics officers. An investigation into the incident is being carried out, but Distress Alert operations manager Gerrit Bradnick said there was "no proof of any negligence" on his company's behalf.
"This did not happen because our paramedics are not properly trained," he told TimesLive. Mr Bradnick told TimesSelect she was one of several people involved in a car accident which left two others dead on Sunday, 24 June.
This is not the first time this year someone has woken up in a mortuary after being declared dead. In January an inmate at a jail in Spain's Asturias region regained consciousness hours before an autopsy was due to be performed.
It is also not the first time this has happened in South Africa. Seven years ago, a 50-year-old man woke up screaming in an Eastern Cape morgue. In 2016 another road accident victim, from KwaZulu Natal, was declared dead, only to be found breathing the next day.
He died five hours after the discovery.
Also Read: Dog risks his life to save owner from rattlesnake bite
First published: 2 July 2018, 17:56 IST