CAPE TOWN — At the scene of a recent car wreck on a dark South African road, an ambulance crew found a woman with severe injuries and no sign of a pulse or breath, and they pronounced her dead. She was taken to a mortuary and placed in one of the refrigerators — until several hours later, when someone noticed that she was breathing.

The woman was hospitalized that day, June 24, said Warrant Officer Peter Masooa of the Carletonville police station in Gauteng Province.

Lesemang Matuka, a spokesman for the Gauteng provincial health department, said Monday that the patient remained hospitalized and was in critical condition.

The case is under investigation, provincial officials said.

“Our crew is devastated — we are here to keep people alive,” said Gerrit Bradnick, operational manager for Distress Alert, the small private ambulance service that mistook the woman’s condition. “If there was any indication she was still alive, we would have treated her. This has been extremely traumatic for us.”