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Funeral home buries wrong body

Written by DeadGirl
Thursday, 25 May 2006
By Brian Williams May 26, 2006 BRISBANE City Council had to exhume a body at Mt Gravatt Cemetery after a mix-up with corpses last week. Simplicity Funerals realised the wrong body had been placed in a coffin after staff returned from a funeral. The company notified the family, the body was exhumed and the correct body interred. A spokesman for Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said an exhumation took place but no further details would be released in deference to the family's feelings. Anthony Perl, a spokesman for InvoCare, the national company that owns Simplicity Funerals, said although procedures were in place to limit any mix-ups, a staff member made a mistake. As soon as the error was discovered protocol was followed to inform the family and take appropriate action. "It's obvious in this kind of situation that all funeral arrangements are provided by human beings and at the end of the day no human is 100 per cent perfect," Mr Perl said. "It's always a factor you deal with in this industry or any other for that matter. "The family has asked that no comment be made on the details, and procedures are in place to ensure the interests of all families are maintained at all times." Mr Perl said his company handled about 26,000 funerals a year and this was the first time such an incident had happened. He declined to say if any action was taken against the staff member. It is believed the family elected not to tell wider family members and friends of the incident because they did not want to distress them further. Australian Funeral Directors Association national senior vice president Wes Heritage said all funeral companies used a register which was meant to reduce the risk of accidents. Mr Heritage, from Heritage Brothers Funeral Services on the Gold Coast, said all details were recorded on the register about a deceased person. Details included where they were collected and any clothing, valuables and jewellery that might have come with them. The deceased was fitted with a hospital-style wrist tag that carried details that staff matched with the casket in which they would be buried. "Registers are basically a log book of movements of the deceased," he said. "They contain information about such things as who prepared the deceased and who placed them in the casket, even about dentures. "We'd like to think it always works but obviously this shows somehow, sometimes there can be errors. "This must be unbelievably stressful for the family and the funeral home staff. I can't think of a worst nightmare in this business," Mr Heritage said. He knew of only one other similar incident, occurring in Tasmania in recent years. The association received 10 to 20 complaints a year but these were mostly about lesser incidents. "I just feel so much for the family and I know the company involved will be devastated about this." Last month a private company working for the Australian Defence Force shipped to Australia the body of Bosnian carpenter Juso Sinanovic from Kuwait instead of Australian soldier Jake Kovco, who died in Iraq. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,19261609-1248,00.html

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Taphophilia?

taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)

ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"

DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries