‘Dead’ woman wakes up in South African mortuary allegedly

A 52-year-old woman from Phoenix in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), South Africa, recently woke up in a mortuary freezer at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital!

Constantia Junior Govender had allegedly been declared dead by doctors at the hospital.

The KZN Department of Health says it will issue an official response once it completes an investigation into the alleged incident, which is believed to have occurred last month.

Edwin Baptie – DA KZN Spokesperson on Health – says that if KZN Health MEC, Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu doesn’t want to “fan the flames of disgruntlement” she should act immediately.

To date, the DoH has denied the incident referring to hospital records which, they claim, do not support the accusations.

”Of concern to the DA is that neither party has made direct reference to a specific date, time, place or staff members to verify their accounts. We therefore call on both the Department of Health and Ms Govender to do so in order to enable a swift and conclusive probe,” said Baptie.

“Ms Govender’s claim has striking commonalities with another incident in 2016, where a motorcycle accident patient was found to be alive in a mortuary fridge at the same hospital. Tragically, he succumbed to his injuries several hours later.”