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Swedish newspaper prints obituary for man who was still alive

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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.

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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."

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"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."

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