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A man from Alagoinhas, Brazil was showed up alive at his own funeral after being incorrectly identified as a slain co-worker. Wikipedia

As a family gathered to mourn their slain relative, the man shocked everyone by showing up at his own wake very much alive.

Gilberto Araujo, 41, from Alagoinhas, Brazil was never in any mortal danger, but simply a victim of mistaken identity. On Sunday, Police contacted his brother Jose Marcos and asked him to come identify his body at the morgue, Fox News reports.

"The confusion started when news started circulating that a car washer had been shot dead," Jose Marcos' wife, Ana Paula, told the UOL Internet news portal.

Araujo, who works as a car washer, was positively identified as the body at the morgue, and Jose Marcos took it home to be buried.

Police inspector Roberto Lima said that the mistake was “understandable.”

"The two men closely resembled each other and both worked as car washers," Lima said.

According to the inspector the deceased man was actually Genivaldo Santos Gama; information about him is largely unknown.

Araujo, who hadn’t seen his family in nearly four months, according to the Daily Mail, became aware of the confusion when a friend stopped him in the street on Monday and told him his family was mourning his death.

"A friend told me there was a coffin and that I was inside it," he said. "So I said: 'But I'm alive, pinch me!'"

According to BBC, Araujo first attempted to contact a friend who was at the wake; and hung up on him believing it to be a hoax. When he showed up at the wake; however, several attendees fainted and others ran away in fright, family friend Maria Menezes told the G1 online news site.

Afterward, Araujo’s mother told reporters she was “overjoyed,” that he had returned to clear up the confusion.

"What mother wouldn't be, after being told that her son is dead and then sees him alive?" she said.