A hospital is accused of telling a family that their daughter checked out of the facility – when she actually died and her body was being kept in storage.
Jessie Peterson, 31, was admitted to Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael, California, in April of last year for a diabetic episode.
Two days later, Peterson called her mother, Ginger Congi, saying that she would be discharged and needed a ride, states a lawsuit her family filed in Sacramento County Superior Court earlier this month.
Hospital staff later told Congi that Peterson had left the facility against medical advice, and records showed that she had been discharged.
Her family then spent months ‘relentlessly’ looking for Peterson and filed a missing persons report, states the suit.
Just over a year later, the county detective’s office informed the family that Peterson had been discovered deceased at the hospital.
In fact, Peterson had been pronounced dead a couple hours after calling her mom and was transferred the next day to a cold storage facility, according to the suit.
‘Mercy San Juan hospital failed in its most fundamental duty to notify Jessie’s family of her death,’ it states.
‘Mercy San Juan stored Jessie in an off-site warehouse morgue and she was left to decompose for nearly a year while her family relentlessly inquired about her whereabouts.’
Peterson’s death certificate completed in April of this year states that she died of cardiopulmonary arrest.
Due to the amount of time that passed from Peterson’s death to when her body was uncovered, it is no longer possible to conduct an autopsy to determine if there was medical malpractice involved, according to the suit.
‘We’re still very sad, and we still don’t have any answers,’ Congi told The New York Times. ‘It’s hard to not be angry.’
The lawsuit states that the hospital had ‘malicious and outrageous’ conduct and accuses it of general negligence, negligent handling of a corpse and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Dignity Health, which runs Mercy San Juan declined to comment on pending litigation and stated only: ‘We extend our deepest sympathies to the family during this difficult time.’
Peterson’s family is seeking over $5million in damages, attorney’s fees and ‘five times the jury’s award of actual damages to punish defendants for their outrageous and inexcusable negligence’.
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