Whitney Cerak and Laura VanRyn
An absolutely tragic case of misidentification, and the best argument for ever-vigilant skepticism that I have seen in a long time. You can’t assume anything. Can you imagine what the parents of these two young women are going through??
Families Stunned by Misidentification
A couple sat by their daughter’s hospital bedside for weeks after an auto accident until she came out of a coma and they realized she was not their daughter after all, but another blond-haired young woman injured in the wreck. Their own daughter, it turned out, was dead and buried.
In a tragic mix-up, one family had been 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 family of 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.
I sense a large lawsuit coming. Call me crazy.
Ooops sorry bout that…
All blondes look alike
Sad. Hope it doesn’t come to a lawsuit–nobody will win.
Doh!
5 WEEKS??!!! I understand that she may have been a little banged up, but surley the parents could have IDed the person, and noticed that it wasn’t their girl. Tragic Story Though.
Somebody’s going to have to pay for that family’s suffering. I bet it will be us.
Even I can tell the difference between the two. Whatever it was, shock, dispair… caused denial. They just didn’t want to see that it wasn’t her because of the alternative.
#6, well clearly NOT! Obviously she must have been greatly disformed or injured, as I’m sure the parents know what their daughter looks like FFS.
#8 You’re an idiot.
The rest of you, try and be a little compassionate!
Yes, it would help if people actually read the article.
#9, what makes you such an expert, jerk?
They didn’t recognize her until she until she came out of a coma. What part of that don’t you understand? Why did it take that event to bring them to their senses? Besides that, the human animal, like every other animal, can recognize it’s own by instinct. I would certainly recognize any of my children under almost any circumstance unless I was somehow mentally overwhelmed at the time.
It’s just a hypothesis, so keep your insults to yourself, A-H.
From what I read in the print version of this story, the girl (obviously the one who lived) was actually awake and speaking (in limited ways) at various points in this process…how can THAT slip past people? I don’t mean disrespect, but wouldn’t the hospital staff (and family) use her name at some point? Wouldn’t she wonder who the hell these people were? It is an incredible story…so sad for the people whose daughter it is NOT…but, imagine if you are the other family…sure, it was horrible, but I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t rather find out that it was a false alarm than not…
Jim(R): For one, she was not only in a coma, but she “suffered facial swelling, broken bones and cuts and bruises, and was in a neck brace.” Not sure if you’ve seen someone from an accident with facial swelling and bruising…but it’s hard to recognize them even when you know for a fact who they are. Not to mention that they do kind of look similar. It had nothing to do with the family in denial.
This compounds the problem that the coroner in the case isn’t even a doctor….a fact I didn’t know beforehand. I thought all coroners had to go through medical training at least, if not medical school. Ron Mowery, the coroner in question, said he completed a state coroner’s association training course, but was not certified. His background is law enforcement, not medicine.
FOr those of you who ask, “How can this happen?”, please check this follow-up. And I’d like some sources cited on the statement that human recognize their own instinctually.
The link:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060602/NEWS06/606020460
Johnny,
If your daughter had natural blond hair(the one on the left), don’t you think you would notice the dark roots on the RH girl? Last time I checked, hair doesn’t swell up or change color in an accident. I can understand if it were a friend lying there, but not a son or daughter. There are many other small identifying features that most parents would recognige of their son or daughter, even if on a swollen face.
And why aren’t the pictures in colour?
My point is in responce to the first couple of comments where a law suit was mentioned. I feel badly for them, but I think the parents have to take some responsibility here.
Jim(R): So, let me get this straight. If you were told a loved one was in the hospital, in coma, under the covers, only the head above which is swollen, bandaged, stitched up, the first thing you would do upon arriving is check the roots to make sure the hospital hadn’t switched your loved one for someone who happened to look very much alike? This is your first thought?
It’s not the first thing I’d do, but you’d think that after a few weeks they’d notice something… The freckles are different, the eyes are a different colour, the hair is the wrong colour, one has a pointy chin… come on. If you have children you know what I’m talking about.
No one looks like themselves in the hospital.
They focused in the article on the bad part. The good part where the other family sees a daughter rise from the grave, is shocking.
#14 Don posterd a link that supports my hypothesis.
The following is a quote from Dr. Melvin Bornstein, a Farmington Hills psychiatrist.
“Determined to soldier through the horrific experience of a child’s battle for life, parents and loved ones can block out contrary information, Bornstein said.
“It’s sort of an emotional make-believe,” he said. “This is not a perception issue, it’s an emotional issue.”
My comment was:
“Whatever it was, shock, dispair… caused denial. They just didn’t want to see that it wasn’t her because of the alternative.”
I don’t think I was too far off the mark for a layman.
Their own daughter, it turned out, was dead and buried.
I think I have experienced grief, and am then reminded there are countless others who have experienced worse…
I’m a heartless jerk, but…
All they had to do was flip the bodies over. There’s a 50/50 chance one of these girls had a CFM tattoo on her lower back, or above her ass, depending on your POV.
On a related note, I see another white pretty blonde girl got killed, this time at Clemson. Of course, nobody else in the USA or Iraq was senselessly killed this week. Let’s talk about virginal white girls, nobody else matters.
Where’s Britney today?
I think anyone dissing on the parents being mistaken should sit back and think that they were going through the worst possible thing for a parent. toss in the fact that most people are inclined to believe doctors, nurses, etc on rather fundamental things like the identity of the patient ….
so cut them some slack.
it’s ironic the only thing that happens here in indy, to get on the dvorak blog, is sumn so sad, we cant even be proud of having sumn happen in our godforsaken cornfields