Not the first time a person has ‘woken up’ after being declared dead at Durban morgue

Picture: Henk Kruger/African News Agency (ANA)Archives

Picture: Henk Kruger/African News Agency (ANA)Archives

Published May 17, 2023

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While Mzansi reacts to a woman's claims of waking up inside a mortuary in Durban, it’s not the first time that something like that has happened – at the very same facility.

In 2016, Msizi Mkhize was found alive after being taken to the Phoenix mortuary.

This week Phoenix Tabloid spoke to Clayfield mother, Constantia Junior Govender, who claimed to have woken up “naked and covered with a sheet” inside the Phoenix mortuary. She said she did not know how she arrived at the hospital or what happened to her.

She only remembered waking up at the morgue. Govender told the publication that she was assisted by staff from the mortuary who wheeled her out of the cold room and took her to the casualty ward of the Mahatma Ghandi Memorial Hospital.

She was reportedly told that when she had arrived at the same hospital earlier, she had no pulse and was administered oxygen but “flatlined” three times. She was further informed that after 45 minutes, staff called for the mortuary van.

In 2016, the Daily News reported that Mkhize was hit by a car while walking home in KwaMashu on December 5.

Paramedics declared him dead at the scene and he was taken to the Phoenix mortuary. The next morning when his parents went to identify his body, mortuary staff found Mkhize breathing. He had been in the morgue for more than 26 hours. He was taken to the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital and died five hours later.

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