Butler County Coroner's mix-up unacceptable
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070504/EDIT01/705040344/-1/all
The headline was right out of Edgar Allen Poe - "Morgue mixes up bodies for burial" - but the reality was a basic government service that failed to meet its obligation to the public.
Butler County Coroner Richard Burkhardt admitted to The Enquirer that earlier this week his office had released the wrong body to the grieving family of Deborah Reed, a 52-year-old grandmother who died in an apartment fire last Friday.
The body of Paula Webb, 23, was sent to the James Zettler Funeral Home, which buried her Tuesday in Greenwood Cemetery as Reed's family looked on. The mistake was not realized until Webb's family tried to claim her body from the morgue and coroner's employees couldn't find her.
Reed was exhumed later Tuesday and the switch was corrected, but the damage, to the nerves and grief of the families and public faith in the coroner's office, had been done.
This incident and the pain it caused could have been avoided had a morgue attendant or an employee at the funeral home simply double-checked the body against the paperwork before it was released. One look would have revealed that the 28-year-old woman was not a 59-year-old burn victim. But no one looked.
The function of the coroner is something most of us accept without question, but few want to dwell on the job's details. The living want the dead handled with care, with gentleness and, most of all, with respect. Treating the bodies as objects and mixing them up like parcel post deliveries is just not acceptable.
In 2001 employees of the Hamilton County coroner were accused of allowing a free-lance photographer to take pictures of bodies in the morgue there for use in an art book. The resulting scandal included criminal prosecution of the photographer, civil suits against the county and coroner, and ultimately a change in coroner at the next election.
In Butler County, Burkhardt has accepted responsibility and promised that the unnamed employee who mixed up the bodies will be disciplined.
Unlike the Hamilton County case, this incident clearly appears to have been a mistake rather than a crime.
Nevertheless, we urge Burkhardt to thoroughly and quickly investigate what happened and take whatever corrective action is necessary to make sure there are procedures in place to prevent it from ever happening again.
The headline was right out of Edgar Allen Poe - "Morgue mixes up bodies for burial" - but the reality was a basic government service that failed to meet its obligation to the public.
Butler County Coroner Richard Burkhardt admitted to The Enquirer that earlier this week his office had released the wrong body to the grieving family of Deborah Reed, a 52-year-old grandmother who died in an apartment fire last Friday.
The body of Paula Webb, 23, was sent to the James Zettler Funeral Home, which buried her Tuesday in Greenwood Cemetery as Reed's family looked on. The mistake was not realized until Webb's family tried to claim her body from the morgue and coroner's employees couldn't find her.
Reed was exhumed later Tuesday and the switch was corrected, but the damage, to the nerves and grief of the families and public faith in the coroner's office, had been done.
This incident and the pain it caused could have been avoided had a morgue attendant or an employee at the funeral home simply double-checked the body against the paperwork before it was released. One look would have revealed that the 28-year-old woman was not a 59-year-old burn victim. But no one looked.
The function of the coroner is something most of us accept without question, but few want to dwell on the job's details. The living want the dead handled with care, with gentleness and, most of all, with respect. Treating the bodies as objects and mixing them up like parcel post deliveries is just not acceptable.
In 2001 employees of the Hamilton County coroner were accused of allowing a free-lance photographer to take pictures of bodies in the morgue there for use in an art book. The resulting scandal included criminal prosecution of the photographer, civil suits against the county and coroner, and ultimately a change in coroner at the next election.
In Butler County, Burkhardt has accepted responsibility and promised that the unnamed employee who mixed up the bodies will be disciplined.
Unlike the Hamilton County case, this incident clearly appears to have been a mistake rather than a crime.
Nevertheless, we urge Burkhardt to thoroughly and quickly investigate what happened and take whatever corrective action is necessary to make sure there are procedures in place to prevent it from ever happening again.
posted by Scott @ 1:29 AM
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