These 9 True Stories Of People Mistakenly Believed To Be Dead Are Scarier Than Any Horror Movie

Published October 14, 2022

Carlos Camejo: The Man Who Woke Up After Being Pricked By An Autopsy Knife

Carlos Camejo

ReutersCarlos Camejo, 33, holding the document ordering his autopsy.

In 2007, a 33-year-old Venezuelan man named Carlos Camejo found himself in a strange predicament when he woke up to intolerable pain under the knife of a medical examiner — who was performing an autopsy on him.

Camejo had been involved in a terrible highway accident near Caracas, Reuters reported, and taken to the morgue, believed to be dead.

The medical examiners made an incision on Camejo’s face, but quickly noticed something odd: The “dead” man was bleeding. Realizing a serious mistake had been made, they began to stitch up the incision.

Camejo later said, “I woke up because the pain was unbearable.”

Soon afterward, his wife turned up at the morgue to identify her husband’s body. Naturally, she was shocked when she didn’t see his corpse.

Instead, she saw a very much alive Camejo in one of the corridors.

In the end, Carlos Camejo was able to recover and showed his autopsy document and facial scar to a local newspaper, El Universal.

Feeling excruciating pain in a morgue certainly isn’t one of the best ways to wake up, but it’s far better than the alternative — not waking up at all.

author
Austin Harvey
author
A staff writer for All That's Interesting since 2022, Austin Harvey has also had work published with Discover Magazine, Giddy, and Lucid, covering topics including history, and sociology. He has published more than 1,000 pieces, largely covering modern history and archaeology. He is a co-host of the History Uncovered podcast as well as a co-host and founder of the Conspiracy Realists podcast. He holds a Bachelor's degree from Point Park University. He is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
editor
Jaclyn Anglis
editor
Based in Brooklyn, New York, Jaclyn Anglis is the senior managing editor at All That's Interesting, where she has worked since 2019. She holds a Master's degree in journalism from the City University of New York and a dual Bachelor's degree in English writing and history from DePauw University. In a career that spans 11 years, she has also worked with the New York Daily News, Bustle, and Bauer Xcel Media. Her interests include American history, true crime, modern history, and science.
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Harvey, Austin. "These 9 True Stories Of People Mistakenly Believed To Be Dead Are Scarier Than Any Horror Movie." AllThatsInteresting.com, October 14, 2022, https://allthatsinteresting.com/mistakenly-declared-dead. Accessed July 26, 2025.