Identity Mix-Up Stuns Crash Victims' Families

Comatose Woman in Hospital Went Misidentified for Weeks

http://cdn.news.aol.com/aolnews_photos/0e/06/20060531171009990001
A comatose crash victim believed to be Laura VanRyn, left, was in fact fellow student Whitney Cerak. VanRyn died in the crash.


INDIANAPOLIS (June 1) - A family sat by their daughter's hospital bedside for weeks after an auto accident before they realized that the blond-haired young woman was not their daughter after all, but another college student injured in the wreck.

Their own daughter, it turned out, was dead and buried.
In a tragic mix-up, one family was incorrectly told their daughter had died in the April 26 crash in Indiana, and another was erroneously informed their daughter was in a coma.

The two young women looked remarkably alike, and the one in a coma suffered facial swelling, broken bones and cuts and bruises, and was in a neck brace.

The family of Taylor University student Laura VanRyn, 22, disclosed the mix-up Wednesday on a Web log that they had used to record detailed updates on the young woman's recovery.

"Our hearts are aching as we have learned that the young woman we have been taking care of over the past five weeks has not been our dear Laura, but instead a fellow Taylor student of hers, Whitney Cerak," the VanRyns said on the blog.

As the woman regained consciousness she said things that made the family question her identity.

The family said that as the young woman began regaining consciousness at a rehabilitation center in Grand Rapids, Mich., she said things that made them question her identity.

As recently as Monday, the VanRyns reported: "While certain things seem to be coming back to her, she still has times where she'll say things that don't make much sense."

Officials at Taylor University, an evangelical Christian college in Upland, Ind., about 60 miles from Indianapolis, confirmed the case of mistaken identity.

"We rejoice with the Ceraks. We grieve with the VanRyns," said Taylor spokesman Jim Garringer. He said the Grant County coroner notified the school of the error.

Four Taylor students and an employee were killed when their van was struck by a tractor-trailer that had drifted across a highway median. Those in the van worked for Taylor's dining services and were preparing for a banquet for the inauguration of a new president of the 1,850-student school.

It was not clear who mistakenly identified the victims or how the error happened. The coroner's office did not immediately return a call. But the VanRyns, who are from Caledonia, Mich., said their daughter and Cerak, 18, of Gaylord, Mich., bore an "uncanny resemblance."

Most of the crash victims had funerals with closed caskets. A month ago, an overflow crowd of more than 1,400 people turned out for what they thought was Cerak's funeral in Gaylord, Mich.

The VanRyn family used the blog to provide progress reports on the young woman, reporting, example, that her hair was in pigtails or braids, that she managed to feed herself some applesauce, that she played a game of "connect four" with one of the therapists and did quite well, and that she performed an exercise in which her therapist gave her a word and she had to supply the word's opposite.

A call to the VanRyns was not immediately returned. An attorney for the Cerak family did not return a call either.

Prosecutors are weighing criminal charges against the truck driver, saying he may having fallen asleep at the wheel.

Ouch! Such a terrible, terrible mistake. ohno:

What a sad thing. :(

Very tragic. Made front page news here. I can't even imagine what those families are going through.

I seen this last night on the news. Very sad and tragic.


NOW, what i want to know is, when a person dies in an accident, they automatically go to the coroner. How did the coroner not make a proper identification of the victim? When the person is unable to be identified from facial features, they resort to dental charts, fingerprints, etc. Anything and everything to assure the person that is being autopsied is identified. That is the question I want to know. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Holy Lord! What a horrible and tragic story.

That is so crazy. I don't know how people deal with that. So I'm assuming they need to have another funeral... except with the same body?

:(

God, how tragic :(

that is so tragic i feel awful for the familes of both girls

That is the saddest, most devastating story I've ever heard... I feel so badly for the two families...

NOW, what i want to know is, when a person dies in an accident, they automatically go to the coroner. How did the coroner not make a proper identification of the victim? When the person is unable to be identified from facial features, they resort to dental charts, fingerprints, etc. Anything and everything to assure the person that is being autopsied is identified. That is the question I want to know. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

According to the papers here in MI, identification was made by school officials, not the coroner or family members. Apparently the ID's of the victims were scattered all about the crash site and were matched with the girls right then. That's where the mistake was made. It is very hard to believe and the way it was handled was very unprofessional. I definitely see a lawsuit coming........

I heard about that yesterday.....wow I can't believe it! How shocking and sad! :eek: :(

According to the papers here in MI, identification was made by school officials, not the coroner or family members. Apparently the ID's of the victims were scattered all about the crash site and were matched with the girls right then. That's where the mistake was made. It is very hard to believe and the way it was handled was very unprofessional. I definitely see a lawsuit coming........
Geeezzzzz, unprofessional isnt the word....this is criminal negligence to me

And i cant even imagine how devistating it would be to think your daughter lived only to find out shes gone

Latest news is that the coroner will be LEAVING HIS POSITION as coroner. He had thought abt resigning long before this occurred...too bad he didn't.

That same situation happen in the next area over from mine. Two women who were in a fire. One went to the hospital for treatment and the other was identified as dead. Only when the father and mother of the hospitalized went to visit, they found this wasn't their daughter. The hospitalized woman was bandaged so a week later the true identities were found. It was a mess. The whole story was a mess. Man lights fire crackers under dry xmas tree and tree catches fire causeing disaster. I don't entirely blamed the coroner, the witnesses around the incident should have some knowledge who's who. To back it up, blood taken, photos, dental records? and other people should have known.

That same situation happen in the next area over from mine. Two women who were in a fire. One went to the hospital for treatment and the other was identified as dead. Only when the father and mother of the hospitalized went to visit, they found this wasn't their daughter. The hospitalized woman was bandaged so a week later the true identities were found. It was a mess. The whole story was a mess. Man lights fire crackers under dry xmas tree and tree catches fire causeing disaster. I don't entirely blamed the coroner, the witnesses around the incident should have some knowledge who's who. To back it up, blood taken, photos, dental records? and other people should have known.
IT IS THE JOB OF THE CORONERS TO KNOW WHO IS WHO...no one else. Witnesses would have no part other than to say maybe who they think was in a house. But the ultimate task falls on the coroner. That is what they get paid for...that is what they studied hard for. It is their job to make an identification. Even when the face of a person is recognizable, they must still go thru the process of fingerprints and other identification purposes.

That is a tagic story. The coroner ought to be fired.

IT IS THE JOB OF THE CORONERS TO KNOW WHO IS WHO...no one else. Witnesses would have no part other than to say maybe who they think was in a house. But the ultimate task falls on the coroner. That is what they get paid for...that is what they studied hard for. It is their job to make an identification. Even when the face of a person is recognizable, they must still go thru the process of fingerprints and other identification purposes.
It was said during our local news tonight that in Indiana the job of coroner is an elected postion and the state does not require the coroner to have medical training. Sounds like something Indiana should change from now on.

That is a tagic story. The coroner ought to be fired.
If you check out some of the previous posts, I had put there that the coroner had decided to resign. However, he stated he had thought abt resigning WAY before this tragic incident. He is now resigning because "this is not the job for him." What is tragic is he didn't take his job serious enough and he didn't quit when he felt he needed to. Then, two families wouldn't be suffering right now.


As for the fact that coroner is elected, doesn't take away from the fact that one must still perform their job correctly, properly, etc. I am so glad we don't elect our coroners like that. Thank God. I guess those little towns must do that. I also read this coroner was a sheriff at one point...that is crazy!!!! and not be medically trained???? I wonder how many homicides have gone undiscovered because of faulty work by coroners like this????:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Authorities bungled mixed-up victims case

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Authorities missed one opportunity after another to avoid — or at least correct sooner — the sad mix-up between a student killed in a van crash and a classmate who survived.

Among other things, a sister of one of the victims asked to see the body but was talked out of it by a deputy coroner who said it would be too traumatic. A boyfriend and a college roommate also raised doubts about whether the women had been accurately identified, but the mistake went undiscovered for five weeks.

ON DEADLINE: Cerak's family updates her condition (http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/06/laura_vanryns_b.html)

The coroner who misidentified 22-year-old Laura VanRyn's body as that of survivor Whitney Cerak, 19, said Friday the "entire disaster" may have been avoided if a deputy coroner had not urged one of Cerak's sisters to wait before looking at what he thought was her corpse. She never did look.

Grant County Coroner Ron Mowery said the woman was "extremely traumatized" and could not stand without help after learning of her sister's death at a hospital in Marion, northeast of Indianapolis.

The deputy coroner's advice was "out of concern for how she would handle the shock" of seeing her sister's body, Mowery said.

The stunning error — that Cerak was actually alive and VanRyn was dead — lingered for five weeks after the April 26 collision between a van and a tractor-trailer. On Tuesday, dental records conclusively identified the woman recuperating at a Michigan hospital as Cerak, not VanRyn.

In that span, VanRyn's family kept a vigil at the bedside of Cerak, a complete stranger, long after Cerak's parents had buried VanRyn in a closed-casket funeral without ever seeing the body inside.

But indications that there had been a mix-up came sooner.

Eugene B. Habecker, president of Taylor University, where both women were students, said Friday that VanRyn's roommate questioned whether the seriously injured young woman was actually VanRyn.

The roommate shared her suspicions with school staff May 18, and Habecker said the school launched a "discreet fact-finding effort" and asked prosecutors for accident reports.

A message seeking comment was left Friday with the office of Grant County Prosecutor James Luttrull Jr. His office is weighing criminal charges against the truck driver, saying he may have fallen asleep at the wheel.

Habecker believes the school responded in a "prudent and responsible" way to the student's concerns. The error was not discovered until 12 days later at the Michigan hospital where she had been moved.

"We had a responsibility to address her concerns and we believe we did. We took her very seriously," Habecker said. "We're a Christian university — we don't profess expertise in forensics. We don't profess expertise in law enforcement."

Cerak, who bore a resemblance to VanRyn, was in a coma until this week and suffered a swollen face and broken bones, cuts and bruises and brain injuries in the crash.

VanRyn's parents did not begin to question whether she was actually their daughter until, as she regained consciousness, she started saying things that did not make sense to them, including referring to VanRyn's father by a pet name he did not recognize.

She replied "Whitney" several times after VanRyn's parents addressed her as "Laura," Anne Veltema, a spokeswoman with Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, Mich., said Wednesday.

On Thursday, Cerak began crying in her hospital room and asked relatives "You think I'm dead?" according to comments posted by her family on a blog.

Relatives "spent a good part of the afternoon comforting her as she has began to realize that she was in an accident and we weren't with her for a while," the family wrote.

Mowery also said that VanRyn's boyfriend initially questioned her identity based on the young woman's behaviors and comments.

On Friday, VanRyn's family received permission to exhume her body from Fairview Cemetery in Gaylord, Mich., where she was buried April 30 under a tombstone with Cerak's name during a service attended by more than 1,400 people.

After the remains are unearthed, DNA tests and dental comparisons will be made to ensure the body's identity, said Jane Sundmacher, a spokeswoman for the Northwest Michigan Community Health Agency.

VanRyn's family lives in Caledonia, Mich., about 150 miles to the south, where a memorial service is planned for Sunday in the Grand Rapids suburb of Kentwood.

This story brought tears to my eyes...how tragic! I can't imagine what these families have gone through :(

Anguish follows tragic case of mistaken identity

By Emily Bazar and Rick Hampson, USA TODAY

Whitney Cerak and Laura VanRyn looked remarkably alike. But so much alike that a coroner investigating a traffic accident could confuse one, who died, with the other, who lived? That Laura's family could tend the injured Whitney for five weeks before realizing that she was not their daughter?

"It's just so unbelievable," Whitney's grandfather Emil Frank said of a case of mistaken identities that left one family and one hometown exultant; another family and another town crushed; and a shaken coroner concluding that he's not cut out for the job.

"We're so elated," said Joe Duff, manager of Whitney's hometown of Gaylord, Mich., upon learning that Whitney, and not her fellow college student Laura, had survived a highway wreck. "But the community's kind of torn because there's another community and another family that's going through exactly the kind of terrible loss that we went through."

Laura's hometown of Caledonia, Mich., was shocked, said high school Principal Ellen Zack: "It's like, 'How can this happen?'... This is a story with so much joy and sorrow." On Sunday, Laura's friends and relatives will gather in Kentwood, a Grand Rapids suburb, for a memorial service.

ON DEADLINE: VanRyn family gives permission to exhume the body (http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/06/laura_vanryns_b.html)

It began April 26, when the two college students were involved in a violent crash in northern Indiana.

Whitney, now 19, and Laura, 22, were riding with a group from Taylor University when a tractor-trailer slammed into their van, killing five people.
Whitney's family was told she was among the dead. Laura's family was told that their daughter was alive, but in a coma-like state.

In Gaylord, Whitney's family held a closed-casket funeral that drew 1,400.
The VanRyns, meanwhile, stayed by the injured young woman's bedside for weeks. On a daily Web log of her recovery, they detailed the many small steps they believed their daughter was making, such as feeding herself applesauce and playing the game Connect Four.

On Monday, the VanRyns reported: "While certain things seem to be coming back to her, she still has times where she'll say things that don't make much sense."

Then the VanRyns learned why: The recovering patient wasn't their daughter. She was Whitney Cerak.

The family disclosed the mix-up on their blog Wednesday: "Our hearts are aching as we have learned that the young woman we have been taking care of over the past five weeks has not been our dear Laura."
"I still can't get over it," said Frank, Whitney's grandfather. "It's like a fairy tale."

A tragedy unfolds

In fact, it sounded more like The Twilight Zone than the Brothers Grimm.
The mix-up started at a chaotic accident scene, according to Grant County, Ind., coroner Ron Mowery.

"The identification, and the personal effects from the van and the occupants from the van, were strewn all about the accident scene and into the grass area off the highway," he said. "There were three agencies that were working together, but were experiencing a difficult time pulling it all together."

He said a series of events led to the mistake:

•When Whitney Cerak was airlifted to a Fort Wayne hospital, Laura VanRyn's ID went with her.

•Members of the Taylor University staff — who knew the women and were asked to identify the victims — confused the women.

•At the hospital in Fort Wayne, Laura's family believed she was the injured woman.

•Whitney's family never looked at the body recovered from the accident. One sister came to the hospital with the intention of doing so, but ultimately decided against it.

•No DNA test was performed to confirm the dead woman's identity.

"We did everything we knew to do ... and trusted the same processes and the same policies that we always do," Mowery said.

But the coroner said he planned to quit by year's end. "The decision to leave this position is something I decided before this tragedy, which has taken a huge toll on me."

Mowery, a politician who has been a county sheriff and mayor of the city of Marion, is completing the term of an elected coroner who moved to a different office. Mowery had signed up for a training course offered by the state Coroners Training Board but had not taken it.

Once the initial mistake had been made, why wasn't the survivor recognized as Whitney Cerak?

In a statement, the VanRyn and Cerak families said the two women shared a "striking similarity in appearance." Both had straight long blond hair. They had similar facial features, build and height.

Also, the victim's face was swollen. Her neck was in a brace. She had broken bones and bruises. For a time she was in a coma-like state.

The VanRyn family's website said the patient had a tracheotomy, which would have made speech difficult until it was capped May 15.

But early on, Mowery said, Laura's boyfriend had questioned her identity based on the young woman's behavior and comments.

In addition, Taylor University officials said late Thursday that Laura's roommate had expressed doubts about the patient's identity as far back as two weeks ago.

As her facial swelling began to recede, the injured woman didn't quite look like Laura, and she said things and did things Laura normally wouldn't, TheIndianapolis Star, Detroit Free Press and the Associated Press reported.

The reports said VanRyn's father became suspicious when she referred to him by a pet name he didn't recognize. Sometimes she seemed frustrated, once trying to tear off her neck brace. Another time, she took a swing at one of the VanRyns. Several times when relatives addressed her as "Laura," the young woman replied, "Whitney," the reports said.

Finally, dental records confirmed the injured woman's identity.

Not the first case

Was there an element of denial or wishful thinking in the VanRyns' failure to detect the mistake?

Robert Hayes, a psychologist from Indiana who works for the Red Cross during disasters, said he could understand why the VanRyns might not have noticed that the patient was not really their daughter. "In that kind of a situation, denial works very nicely," he said. "The things we don't want to see, or would work against what we would believe in or want, we wouldn't notice."

It isn't the first time crash victims have been confused.

In July 2004, Patrick Bement, 17, and Nate Smith, 16, were in a car accident in northern Michigan. One died and one was seriously injured. The survivor's head wounds required extensive bandaging.

Based on where they found a wallet, authorities thought the survivor was Smith. But when Bement's parents saw the face of the boy in the casket at a funeral home, they realized it was not their son.

In such cases, those who find their loved one effectively brought back to life appreciate the agony of those on the other side of the tragedy, Hayes said.

The Ceraks' joy was mixed with sympathy for the VanRyns. "We feel just as much for the family that found out it was not their daughter," Frank said.

"Our families are supporting each other in prayer, and we thank our families, friends and communities for their prayers," the families' statement said.

In the cemetery where Laura's body was buried five weeks ago, the temporary nameplate that had marked the future spot of Whitney's headstone was removed Wednesday. It was unclear when Laura's casket would be exhumed and taken 175 miles south for burial near Grand Rapids.

On their blog Thursday, Laura's family cited Psalms 18: "In my distress I call to the Lord; I cry to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice. ... He reached down from on high and took hold of me."

The family added: "This is our prayer this morning. God's Word is sufficient, no matter what your circumstance."