After being reported dead by his family, a 50-year-old South African man was shut in a morgue fridge Sunday in the small town of Libode in the rural Eastern Cape. But after a 21-hour slumber he suddenly came back to life.

The man scared off two morgue attendants when he woke up inside the morgue on Sunday at 5:00 pm and shouted to be freed.

Terrified workers on duty fled the building thinking it was a ghost and later called the police. As a group of people entered the fridge, they found the man was alive, suffering from extreme cold.

Eastern Cape health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo reported that the man has been deemed stable after treatment in hospital for dehydration. He is at home resting after the traumatic experience in the icy quarters.

“You begin to ask yourself how many other people have died like that in a morgue,” BBC cited Kupelo as saying.

Health officials have suggested that the public should get professional confirmation of death by doctors, emergency works or the police before assuming on their own.

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