Taipei  - A Taiwan man grieving over the death of his fiance crawled into a morgue freezer to commit suicide beside her body, local media reported Tuesday.

Liao Sen-yi lost, a rehabilitated drug addict in Tainan County, south Taiwan, lost Tsai Mei-na on May 23 when she committed suicide by swallowing sleeping pills with alcohol.

Tsai's body was sent to the Tainan City Morgue and stored in a refrigerator awaiting funeral.

On Monday, Tsai climbed into the morgue freezer to commit suicide beside Tsai's body, but was discovered and pulled out when he was still alive.

A morgue worker noticed the the temperature of Tsai's freezer was 12 degrees Centigrade, six degrees higher than normal, and its door not closely shut. She opened the door and discovered Liao, and rushed him to hospital.

She estimated Liao had been inside the morgue for three hours, the time needed for the freezer's temperature to rise six degrees.

She also found a plastic bag containing some sleeping pills and three suicide notes.

In the suicide note to his mother, Liao said he and Tsai had been dating for 10 years and he was deeply grateful that she helped him kick his drug addiction.

"I don't want her to be lonely. I want to stay with her," he said, asking to be buried together with Tsai.

Doctors said Liao had taken sleeping pills before climbing into the freezer. They listed him in critical condition and feared that even if he recovered, he might suffer from brain damage caused by the low temperature inside the freezer. (dpa)