A corpse has fallen out of a hearse into traffic due to an “unexpected technical failure”.

The funeral home in Poland has been forced to apologise after the awful incident that became clear after a driver in an oncoming car realised a body was lying on the road.

Hades Funeral Services was the company transferring the corpse in the city of Stalowa Wola in south eastern Poland.

Local media reported that a man driving on Friday in Stalowa Wola noticed a sheet on his car window before realising a body was lying on the road after the sheet slid down.

Polish media reported the driver briefly worried he had hit the person, reports The Independent.

Press in the area published an image of the corpse lying on a white striped pedestrian crossing where it had tumbled out of the hearse.

In a statement on their website shared on Saturday, Hades Funeral Services said: "It is with deep regret that we inform you that as a result of an unexpected technical failure of the electric tailgate lock in the hearse, during the transport of the body of the deceased, an unfortunate event occurred which does not reflect the high standards of our company.

"We admit our mistake and take full responsibility for what happened.

"Our deep empathy towards the families of the deceased, and the respect we always show to the deceased.

"We will do everything we can to ensure that this type of incident does not happen again in the future."

The company also said that an experienced employee was driving the van.

Last year another horrifying blunder took place involving what experts had thought was a deceased person.

A 76-year-old woman who was declared dead at a hospital in Ecuador astonished her relatives by knocking on her coffin during her wake. 

Relatives left the coffin behind and rushed retired nurse Bella Montoya back to the hospital after the wake in the central city of Babahoyo, her son Gilberto Barbera has revealed. The incident prompted the government to launch an investigation into the hospital.

Montoya initially had been admitted to a hospital in Babahoyo, a city about 34 miles northeast of Guayaquil in central Ecuador with a possible stroke and cardiopulmonary arrest. She died a week later in hospital.