Family learns teen in casket i 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
[http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2002/08/06/ke080602s253527.htm
The death is quite banal: young male unlicensed driver, car out of control, tree in way, death, bla bla... But what makes this story Darwin material, in my mind, is the genetic heritage of these kids: although the two boys' faces were undamaged, each of their families managed to misidentify the body.]
Family learns teen in casket is not their son
Relatives discover at funeral that boy thought dead in crash actually survived; victim was his friend.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Joseph Gerth and Megan Woolhouse
The Courier-Journal
BRANDENBURG, Ky. -- A case of mistaken identity almost caused a Meade County family to cremate the remains of their teen-age son's friend -- while their son, whom they believed to be dead, lay in critical condition in a Louisville hospital.
The two Meade County teens were critically injured in a car crash Wednesday morning and flown to Louisville, where one died later that morning at University Hospital.
Jeremy Hylemon's body would have been cremated after a funeral for John D. Grubs Jr. Saturday if Hylemon's grandmother hadn't attended the funeral and recognized her grandson, said Meade County Sheriff's Deputy William Sego.
Grubs' father and other relatives had identified the dead boy as John Grubs, 16, at the hospital both before and after the teen died, officials said. Meanwhile, Hylemon's family identified the other boy as Jeremy Hylemon, 15, and sat vigil over him for three days, said Ken Marshall, a spokesman for University Hospital.
But Saturday at the funeral home visitation for Grubs, family members and friends figured out the boy in the casket was not Grubs. It was, in fact, Hylemon.
''People have been asking me how this happened, and I have to tell them, 'I don't know,' '' said Richard Siclari, a Jefferson County deputy coroner who escorted Grubs' family into a room at the hospital where they identified the dead teen-ager as their son.
''They cried and prayed and said, 'This is John,' '' he said. ''It's just a terrible case of mistaken identity.''
There still was confusion about which teen had died more than two hours after the noon visitation for Grubs began at W.G. Hardy Funeral Home in Valley Station on Saturday.
Siclari said he was first notified of a potential problem about 2 p.m. Saturday but said someone from the funeral home called back moments later and told him there was nothing to worry about.
''Then I got a third call that said, 'You'd better get into the office, we might have a problem,' '' Siclari said.
Sego said the mix-up became apparent at the funeral home when Hylemon's grandmother attended the open-casket service. She said the teen in the casket was not Grubs.
Sego said funeral home workers were preparing to take the body to be cremated when she spoke up.
''I don't know where the mix-up came in,'' Sego said. ''The funeral home had completed the funeral and everybody had filed out, but a lot of the kids kept saying it just didn't look like John.''
Sego's stepson, Joe Gatrost, said he looked in the casket and immediately questioned whether it was Grubs. ''The person in the casket had pierced ears. . . . The only reason I had doubts was because John didn't have his ears pierced.''
Yesterday, the Jefferson County coroner's office positively identified the dead teen as Hylemon using dental records.
The mix-up has dumbfounded officials and hospital employees.
The Meade County sheriff, Jefferson County coroner and University Hospital officials all said family members, in their grief, misidentified the victims.
Grubs' family could not be reached for comment yesterday and asked the hospital not to release any information about Grubs. Stephanie Hylemon, Jeremy Hylemon's grandmother, declined to comment on the advice of a lawyer.
It was still unclear yesterday how the two families could have made such mistakes.
Siclari said Hylemon didn't have any facial injuries, but when Grubs' family viewed the body, a cloth covered the top of Hylemon's head because of a severe head injury.
Said Jefferson County Coroner Richard Greathouse: ''I wouldn't have had any trouble ID'ing this young man if he were my own son.''
eade County Sheriff Joseph Greer, who knows Grubs, said he went to the hospital Sunday to help clear up the confusion and didn't see any disfiguring injuries to Grubs' face. ''I knew right away it was John Grubs,'' he said.
Greer said the crash happened about 4:15 a.m. Wednesday on Ky. 1239 at Navajo Trail, about six miles southwest of Brandenburg. Although neither teen had a driver's license, Grubs and Hylemon took a car belonging to Grubs' father, John Grubs Sr., after the elder Grubs went to work about 2 a.m., Greer said.
Because neither teen had identification, Greer said the case immediately became more difficult. ''Because of that, we had a dang mess,'' he said. ''And it went downhill from there.''
He said Grubs lost control of the car while traveling at high speed, and the car became airborne and slammed into a tree. The car broke in half.
Greer said Grubs had to be extricated from the car and Hylemon was thrown from it. It was impossible to tell if either had been wearing a seat belt, he said. Toxicology tests showed that neither boy had drugs or alcohol in his system, he said.
Grubs and Hylemon were taken to Hardin Memorial Hospital in Elizabethtown before being flown to University Hospital, where one teen died.
At that point, Siclari said, he took Grubs' father and other family members to identify the body. Grubs' father already had identified the teen once at the hospital in Hardin County. He did so again in Louisville, Siclari said.
arshall, the hospital spokesman, said Hylemon's family identified the teen-ager being treated as Hylemon.
''Occasionally we have someone who is misidentified, but it's unheard of to have two people misidentified by their families,'' Marshall said.
Officials scrambled throughout the weekend to identify the teens.
Siclari said yesterday that he used dental records for Hylemon to make a final determination of who died in the crash.
''We wanted some hard evidence this time,'' he said.
The funeral for Hylemon will be at 11 a.m. tomorrow at Bruington-Jenkins-Sturgeon Funeral Home in Brandenburg. Visitation is from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. today, and after 9 a.m. tomorrow.
Submitted on 08/07/2002
Submitted by:
arc Naimark
Reference:
Louisville Courier Journal
Copyright © 2002 DarwinAwards.com
|
