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CAPE TOWN – At the scene of a recent car accident on a dark road in South Africa, a paramedic found a woman with serious injuries and no signs of a pulse or breath, and they l & # 39; 39, declared dead. She was taken to the morgue and placed in one of the refrigerators – until several hours later, someone noticed that she was breathing.
The woman was hospitalized on June 24, said Warrant Officer Peter Masooa of the Carletonville Police Station.
Lesemang Matuka, a spokesman for the Gauteng Provincial Department of Health, said on Monday that the patient was still in hospital and in critical condition.
The investigation is underway, indicated the provincial authorities. The crew is devastated – we are here to keep people alive, "said Gerrit Bradnick, director of operations at Distress Alert, the small private ambulance service that confused the state of the wife. "If there was an indication that she was still alive, we would have treated her.This was extremely traumatic for us."
EMTs in South Africa must be registered with of the Health Professionals Council, but the Western Cape is the only province that regulates trade and there is no oversight of the national government.
"Anyone can open an ambulance service – it is completely unregulated outside the Western Cape, "said Jo Park-Ross, an ambulance attendant in Cape Town.
This woman was one of four people traveling on an artery connecting Cape M. Bradnick added that the driver had lost control and rolled "several times."
Shortly after, an ambulance from another company, carrying patient from an unrelated, past accident, entered collision with the damaged car, completely blocking the road he said, neither the patient nor the paramedics of this ambulance were injured in this accident.
"It's a very, very bad road," said Bradnick. "Very dark, we have a lot of accidents."
When he reached the scene, there were three bodies lying among the debris and a wounded patient "walking around," said Bradnick, and he spent most of the next hour dodging and diverting traffic, waiting for the police and another ambulance.
"Late Saturday night, people come back from clubs," he said. "There is a lot of drunk driving, the cars were coming at high speed and we kept running through the ditches – it was absolute chaos."
Finally, once the road unobstructed, it was possible to properly inspect the victims. Police started on paperwork for fatal accidents. The three bodies were covered with silver rugs
It was only at dawn, at the government morgue in Carletonville, that the authorities would have heard one. breathing victims
"You never expect to open a refrigerator. there living, "a worker told a local newspaper." Can you imagine if we had started the autopsy and have killed her? "
The episode was reported Monday morning by Times Live of South Africa, and Monday afternoon most of the major South African media
There were other cases of people wrongly declared dead by health professionals, including in the US In some cases, the errors have worsened their conditions or even contributed to their death.
"The diagnosis of death can be extremely difficult," said Ryan Blumenthal, medical examiner Chief of the Department of Forensic Medicine at the University of Pretoria. "This may deceive you, and that may deceive you."
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