As Seen on House vs. the Reality of Premature Autopsy

How often do people wake up in a morgue? Very, very rarely, but it does happen.

In the episode of House titled "Brave Heart", Foreman and House screamed when a patient they believed was dead suddenly woke with a yell as they began an autopsy. Although coroners quibble with several details of the scene, they admit that people have been sent to the morgue when they weren't actually dead.

Fears of premature burial haunted Edgar Allan Poe.

It may be asserted, without hesitation, that no event is so terribly
well adapted to inspire the supremeness of bodily and of mental distress,
as is burial before death. The unendurable oppression of the
lungs—the stifl ing fumes from the damp earth—the clinging to the
death garments—the rigid embrace of the narrow house—the blackness
of the absolute Night—the silence like a sea that overwhelms—
the unseen but palpable presence of the Conqueror Worm.
From “The Premature Burial” by Edgar Allan Poe, 1850

Over a century ago, this sort of life and death mistake was more common than it is today. A more typical contemporary scenario for a premature declaration of death is a multiple-victim car crash or other hectic casualty scene, where paramedics and others may miss faint signs of life as they focus on patients who are obviously alive. 

Read the full discussion in “House, M.D. vs. Reality”