An Oregon man who was declared dead and whose remains his family believed was in his possession reappeared on a FaceTime call, NBC News reported Wednesday.

Tyler John Chase, 22, of Portland, died of a drug overdose in a downtown Portland parking lot on September 10, 2023, the Multnomah County Coroner determined. According to NBC News . Cremation took place three weeks later, the Oregon Health Authority issued a death certificate, and Chase's family collected his remains.

Chase's cousin, Latasha Rosales, reportedly received a call from the medical examiner's office on Dec. 19 as she was preparing to go see the Christmas light show. She also thought there would be news of a death in her family. Chase and her family lost her mother in 2020, several years before her death, and her family was devastated, she told NBC News.

“[The medical examiner] “There was a mistake in his death. He's not dead. He's actually alive,” Rosales told NBC News. She thought it was a prank until the coroner's office put Chase on a FaceTime call to Rosales, according to the report.

“I just lost it. I can't even tell you how I felt. It was just surreal. I can't even explain it,” Rosales told NBC News.

Chase was reportedly receiving treatment for drug use and had lost contact with his family.

“The misidentification occurred because the deceased was in possession of Tyler Chase's wallet and official Oregon provisional driver's license,” Multnomah County said in a statement, according to the newspaper. (Related: Family says funeral home placed wrong body in coffin)

Government-issued identification, fingerprint analysis, and visual identification by loved ones are three ways to identify the dead. However, Chase's family was unable to confirm his identity before cremation.

The coroner's office did not release the identity of the deceased whose ashes were kept by Chase's family, but said the family requested privacy.

According to NBC, after a comprehensive review, the coroner's office found that “going forward, all people found with state-issued temporary identification will also be required to submit fingerprints for positive identification.” This is to ensure that something like this never happens again,'' the Coroner's Office said in a statement following a comprehensive investigation.

“It's incredible how something like this could happen. Like, it makes no sense to me at all,” Rosales told NBC News.