14 DAY TRIAL // Some elderly people make a habit of reading the obituary section of local newspapers to find out about recent deaths. But, in this particular case, one Swedish pensioner was shocked to find out about his own death announcement being published, despite him being alive and well in a hospital room.
Sven-Olof Svensson, an 81-year-old man from Jonkoping, Sweden, was featured in the local newspaper as recently deceased and had his whole life summed up in a few lines of text in the “Rest in Peace” section.
Mr. Svensson was admitted to the hospital on Christmas Eve and his older sister, who is 90 years old, misunderstood the conversation she had with the doctor, believing her brother past away. She proceeded with the usual preparation and alerted friends of her brother's passing.
The woman rapidly began to write an obituary with their common friend Lars Faltskog, and published it in the local Jonkopings-Posten publication. Mr. Faltskog went to the hospital to retrieve his friend's personal items and had the shock of finding him sitting up in bed.
When he told the 81-year-old about the misunderstanding and he began laughing and quoting Mark Twain's stories, “rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
“You can see the humor in it. It's understandable to me that there may have been a mistake even if it was fatal in this case. According to my sister she rang up the doctors and talked about me and, as she understood it, I had died. It's clear that she was shocked,” the 81-year-old man says according to The Local.
The man made peace with the fact that he is going to die sooner rather than later and that, like everyone else, he will end up in the obituary section. The pensioner is proud of his long life, which he sees as fantastic, and about the fact that he can't complain about his age.
The presumed dead man had quite the amusement session because of whole misunderstanding, even if his poor sister had to grieve his fake death and had to endure a second shock when she found out Sven was alive and well.