Swedish newspaper prints obituary for man who was still alive

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- An elderly Swedish man said he was surprised to read his own obituary in a newspaper that was printed after a misunderstanding between doctors and his family.

Sven-Olof Svensson, 81, was feeling unwell and admitted to a hospital in southern Sweden on Christmas Eve, TheLocal.se reported.

His sister, 90, called the hospital to check on her brother and got the impression from a doctor that Svensson had died.

"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," Svensson said.

Svensson's sister then wrote an obituary which was published in the the local Jonkopings-Posten newspaper on New Year's Eve.

The mistake was realized when Svensson's friend Lars Faltskog showed up to the hospital on Jan. 3 to collect Svensson's belongings and found him alive and on the mend in a hospital bed.

"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," Svensson told the Jonkopings-Posten.

When ask how it felt to read his own obituary in the newspaper, Svensson said, "you don't feel much."

"We are all on the same road. Sooner or later you are going to end up in the obituary section. I've lived a fantastic long life, I'm 81 and can't complain about my age."