The Disturbing Case Of The Man Who Woke Up During His Autopsy

October 2024 · 2 minute read

A Venezuelan man named Carlos Camejo had an exceptionally bad day in 2007, according to an English translation (via Google) of the Mexican newspaper El Universal, which was itself citing a Venezuelan newspaper of the same name (archives of the original Venezuelan article appear not to exist on the internet). The 33-year-old man crashed his motorcycle into a parked vehicle, setting into motion a series of failures that would be comical if they weren't so gruesome (and with a little larceny thrown in, to boot).

Paramedics at the scene pronounced him dead — which, by the way, is not something that's done in all 50 states in the U.S., according to Firefighter Now – only a doctor can make such a determination. Once at the morgue, his wife claims, he was left in a corridor, "with the autopsy order tucked into a pants pocket," she claimed.

It got worse. As the team was preparing to open him up, the doctor noticed that Camejo was bleeding — something that dead bodies do not do — and started stitching up his face. "I woke up because the pain was unbearable," he said, via Reuters.

In an added insult, Camejo alleges that someone in the morgue relieved him of his pocket money: about 600,000 bolivars, which at the time was worth about 3,000 Mexican pesos (about $150 at current exchange rates).

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