Posted on 12/11/2003 12:43:19 PM PST by Theodore R.
Wrong body handed over for cremation
AUSTIN (AP) — Travis County officials are investigating how the medical examiner's office accidentally released the wrong body to a funeral home, which cremated the remains.
"We are very sorry this happened," Dr. Roberto Bayardo, the chief medical examiner, said in Wednesday's editions of the Austin American-Statesman. "We have to find out how this mistake occurred. I had thought we were foolproof."
The mix-up occurred last week when funeral home officials went to pick up the body of Paul Williams, 38, of Cedar Park, who had been hit by a train. They were mistakenly given the body of Rayford Floyd, 39, who died in a car wreck.
The funeral home then cremated Floyd's body, thinking it was the body of Williams.
In 1995, a similar mistake generated new protocols at the medical examiner's office on how workers take in bodies and release them to funeral homes. This is the first mix-up since.
The mistake was recognized Saturday morning when workers from a mortuary service hired to pick up Floyd's body for a Burnet County funeral home arrived and asked for his remains.
Bayardo said workers frantically called the funeral home to determine whether it had gotten the body by mistake.
A good mortician can mix the ashes with some plaster, do a little air-brushing....Viola!!!! No one can tell the difference...
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