A South African woman is recovering in hospital after being discovered alive in a mortuary fridge. The woman was taken to Carletonville morgue in Gauteng province, having been declared dead by paramedics following a road accident.
Ambulance company Distress Alert said she had shown 'no form of life', according to South Africa's TimesLive website. However, when a morgue worker returned to check on the body in the fridge, he found the woman was breathing.
An official has confirmed to the BBC that the woman is now being treated in a hospital east of Johannesburg after being referred by forensics officers. She has not been named.
An investigation into the incident is being carried out, with the family demanding answers. 'As a family we won't talk about this unless the police, paramedics and the mortuary officials who were involved are present. We need answers,' a family member told the BBC, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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.
This is not the first time someone has woken up in a mortuary after being declared dead 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.
