Man miraculously survives 48 hours in morgue as he wakes up following car accident

A man in South Africa became a real-life cautionary tale when he miraculously woke up after being taken to a morgue by authorities.

Is there anything more horrifying than the thought of mistakenly being presumed dead?

Not only would your friends and family have to cope with the grief of thinking you've passed away, but you'd also have to deal with a visit to the morgue, the claustrophobic surroundings of a coffin and the horror of being buried alive.

Thankfully it's not often that people who are still alive make it to a chilly morgue freezer, but it's not entirely impossible.

It's exactly what happened in 1993 when a South African man in his 20s suddenly woke up to find himself in a dark, cold drawer.

Sipho William Mdletshe, from the township of Sebokeng, south of Johannesburg, had been driving in the car with his fiancée when the pair got into a bad traffic accident.

Mdletshe's fiancée suffered injuries in the collision but ultimately managed to survive.

Mdletshe himself, however, was declared dead as a result of the crash, and was consequently taken to a mortuary.

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This is fairly standard procedure, and might not have caught global attention if it weren't for the fact that 48 hours after the accident, workers in the mortuary heard screams coming from one of the metal boxes.

Any noise coming from a place filled with dead people might be enough to make some people turn and run the other way, but thankfully the workers realized someone needed help and opened the box in which Mdletshe had been placed.

After he was saved, Mdletshe told newspapers he had slowly regained consciousness after the accident, and eventually became alert enough to realize he was completely trapped.

Naturally he began screaming for help, and it was this that ended up saving his life as the mortuary workers freed him.

So, all's well that ends well, right?

Unfortunately not.

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Mdletshe received another blow after he was freed, when he tried to reunite with his fiancée.

Unfortunately, his partner had been so convinced by Mdletshe's death that she was more horrified than happy when he came back to her.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Mdletshe revealed that his fiancée actually believed he was a zombie, and rejected his efforts to reunite with her.

Mdletshe was left heartbroken at the turn of events, but I suppose there is some silver lining in the fact he lived to tell the tale.

If Mdletshe's story has taught us anything, is to make sure - absolutely sure - that someone is well and truly dead before we shut them in a box.