Mistaken Identity-- Your Funeral or Mine?

Re: Mistaken Identity-- Your Funeral or Mine?


Not sure, if this answers your question [From the 'Chicago Tribune' as of today, print version, page 6]



There's a photo in the paper as well from the persons at the scene of the accident- but although they are behind a curtain, the car "says" enough:

source: as above

Usually a family member must make an identification. Perhaps the families were "spared" this chore (which is often simply a formality) because of the condition of the bodies.

Granted that the survivor could well have been wrapped in bandages and been heavily sedated. Still, I find it hard to believe her family didn't realize that they could "not recognize" her.

I saw pictures of the two on CNN, striking resemblance. Both had long blonde hair, blue eyes, similar facial structure, and evidently similar height, weight, etc.

I'm not sure what kind of injuries the survivor had, but when my sister-in-law had brain surgery, she was simply unrecognizable -- major swelling. Things like hair color took on more importance than you'd think in ID'ing her.

Again from the Chicago Tribune (easier for me than searching the 'Detroit News'), today's print edition, page 4:

Maybe finger printing could have been used.

Opportunistic teens all over the Western World--and perhaps from Asia as well--are confronting their parents.

"Look," If you let me get a tattoo this could never happen in our family."

There is a large (heh, here comes the pun) body of case law on wrongful cremation. That is, the wrong body ends up at the crematory. Misidentification happens more than perhaps we all want to think about.

We handled a case like this when I was still practicing law. Complicating matters was the fact that the man who was supposed to be cremated, and the one who was, were of different races. The whole thing would have gone completely unnoticed, except there was an open casket funeral. The toe tags were switched. I can't recall if that happened at the morgue or later (funeral home, perhaps, my memory is fuzzy) or what. I can't begin to imagine how the families must have felt.

source: Chicago Tribune, (MW edition), Wednesday June 6 2006, page 3

An aussie soldier was killed in Iraq recently when the body arrived in sydney it was not an Australian soldiers body in the casket.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1625518.htm
Kovko's angry family demands answers

Reporter: Matt Peacock

MAXINE McKEW: Welcome to the program. We begin tonight with the breathtaking bungle that surrounds the failure to return the body of Private Jake Kovco for burial in Victoria. An embarrassed and angry Defence Minister Brendan Nelson broke the news this morning that a casket containing, we still don't know who, had been flown from Kuwait to Melbourne by mistake. The timing of the discovery of this error is still a mystery and there's now to be an investigation as to how a much-used private carrier managed a mix-up that has caused immense distress to the Kovco family. Why was it, for instance, that the casket containing Private Kovco, was not escorted at all times, by a representative of the Defence Forces? And there's an added complication - the Defence Minister confirmed today that the accident that killed Private Kovco did not occur while he was cleaning his weapon. On top of that the Kovco family has gone public with its disbelief that the young private was anything other than meticulous in his handling of weapons. Matt Peacock reports on a day that's produced more questions than answers.

Two men were killed in a car accident in Australia. The bodies were released to the wrong parents. The error was not discovered until the funeral of one of the men.

cant find the link.....yet.

That was such a sad story. We can only imagine what those families must be going through.