A BODY taken to an undertakers by an ambulance crew who pronounced it dead turned out to be ALIVE.
Staff at the funeral parlour were stunned when the "corpse" was found to be still breathing.
The blunder — revealed today under the Freedom of Information Act — was one of the most shocking committed by the South Western Ambulance Service.
In another in 2008 a patient with severe chest pains died from a heart attack in an ambulance after a crew let him walk unaided up two flights of stairs.
Ambulance chiefs have not disclosed what happened to the "dead" patient from the incident in 2007.
They refuse even to say whether they were male or female — or if they are still alive to tell of their brush with death.
The incidents are logged as SUIs — Serious Untoward Incidents — which are defined as an accident or incident when a patient, member of staff or member of the public suffers serious injury, major permanent harm or unexpected death, or the risk of death or injury.
They can occur on health service premises, premises where health care is provided and where actions of health staff are likely to cause public concern.
The SWAS, which covers Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset, recorded 62 SUIs in the three years from 2007 to 2009.
Of those 34 were blamed on human error, including nine cases of wrong diagnosis.
Another 23 were blamed on equipment failure, including a case in 2008 where an out-of-hours doctor found battery problems in equipment he was about to use to resuscitate a cardiac arrest patient.
In the other heart attack incident the ambulance crew are seen on CCTV carrying out no checks on a patient with severe chest pains before letting him walk up the stairs.
The service and unions said SUIs were a very small proportion of the thousands of incidents a year crews attended.
Dr Andy Smith, the medical director of the service, said: "When you look at these incidents, it works out at roughly less than three per 100,000 call-outs."
He said the service had a culture of openness and staff were encouraged to report any incidents immediately "so we can investigate... and learn lessons".
Unison union spokesman Alan Lofthouse said: "We're open to scrutiny from the public, we are all professional and we are all accountable."
Do you know the person who came back from the dead? Call us on 0207 782 4100, text 63000 or email talkback@the-sun.co.uk (the sun)
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