Oops - Wrong Body. Again.
The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office made another body error recently.
In 2004, they released the clothing for a homicide victim, but kept Chad Mulvin’s body. The victim’s mother had her son cremated, but didn’t find out for over nine months that she had only his clothing. At some point, when someone wanted to see the victim’s clothing, ME staff members realized their error, and turned over his remains. The county settled a lawsuit for $15,000 over that situation.
Now we hear that the ME office released the wrong body, and shipped it to Jamaica. Kemoy Crawford died in March of 2008, and was supposed to be sent home. This time, the funeral director in Jamaica discovered the error. It cost Allegheny County $9,000 to make it right. Dr. Karl Williams says three employees have been disciplined, and one was fired, and that his office has implemented safeguards to prevent this situation from occurring again.
Adult? 2-Year-old?
How come no one at the funeral home said “Gee, doesn’t this body seem kind of tall for a 2-year-old?” How come the mortuary transportation service didn’t notice the same issue?
Wasn’t someone paying attention here?
It’s good that the state is picking up the tab for fixing the error, but it seems like both the mortuary transportation service and the funeral home had the chance to catch the error, and missed.