Family Buries Wrong Man After Mistake At Hospital Times Picayune 04-22-1996 ************************************************* Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ It was bad enough that their father lay in Charity Hospital for four days before officials notified the worried family of Albert Autin that the 81-year- old had died - and this despite a batch of identification papers in his wallet. The greater horror was the discovery weeks later - and almost by chance - that the New Orleans coroner had removed the wrong body from the Charity morgue for delivery to a local funeral parlor. Someone else's relative lay beside Autin's wife of 47 years in the grave marked with Autin's name. Someone else had been the focus of his family's tears and funeral prayers. Someone they didn't even know. The story of Albert Autin's death after he was hit by a car might seem to confirm everyone's worst fears about the faceless anonymity of modern life and the indifference of bureaucracy. In truth, it's a tale more bizarre than representative, one that has prompted an overhaul of the hospital procedures that allowed it to happen. "I want to say it was a comedy of errors, but it was heartbreaking," said Autin's daughter Bernice Parke, a Metairie resident. "It's something that shouldn't happen in this day and age," said his other daughter, Lynda Prattini, of Kenner. "Officially, this hospital dreadfully, dreadfully regrets what happened in the case of Mr. Autin," Charity spokesman Jerry Romig said. "We can't say enough how badly we feel. From start to finish, it was one mistake after another, and we made our share of them." *** Accident, then mistakes *** The series of mistakes began at 4:45 p.m. on St. Patrick's Day last year, when Albert P. Autin Sr. was hit while crossing South Galvez Street near Tulane Avenue to get to his car. Before police arrived, an ambulance whisked Autin to Charity, where someone found his wallet, which contained a sheaf of identification, including a driver's license, insurance cards and passes entitling Autin to senior-citizen discounts at a fast-food restaurant and on New Orleans buses and streetcars. There also was a card listing telephone numbers to call in an emergency - Prattini's home and office. Romig said someone called both numbers; Prattini disputed that claim, saying there was no record of the call on her home answering machine and that the other number - a direct line to her desk - never rang with that news on that Friday afternoon. No other attempts to reach Prattini were made, Romig said. Moreover, the wallet was sealed inside an envelope, as hospital policy dictated, and put into a hospital safe without anyone jotting down the two numbers to try again. Unbeknownst to Prattini, people already were at work trying to figure out what happened, Romig said. In an attempt to complete their report on the accident, police officers asked to see the wallet, but were told that hospital policy - since changed - forbade giving the wallet to anyone outside the victim's family. However, nobody at Charity could call Autin's family because the wallet had been given to hospital security and locked up. *** Death discovered *** Autin had surgery and died Sunday. His family did not know anything might be amiss until that day, when a friend of Autin's called to say she hadn't seen him at Mass the day before. That night, Autin's son, Albert Autin Jr., of Mandeville, drove past his father's house in the 2300 block of Gov. Nicholls Street. It was dark, and his car was gone. "I knew something was wrong," Prattini said. "I kept having dreams of his crying somewhere in the weeds, bleeding to death." The next day, Prattini called a friend in the Police Department with a tearful plea: "Please help me find my daddy." On Tuesday, the stunned siblings got the news that two days after being admitted to Charity he had died of a blood clot in his brain. They gathered at the hospital, but when they were told they didn't have to view their father's battered body, they chose not to. This, they admit, was a mistake, because they could have confirmed his identity. It's an error that, they said, other families should not make, regardless of their emotional state. "We could be called idiots," Parke said. "We're aware of that. We're trying to tell families out there to get a grip. In a state of shock and grief, don't make the mistake we made." But, Romig said, not even an ironclad identification could have prevented what happened next: The coroner's office picked up the wrong body. Two men happened to be in Charity's morgue, both dead of head injuries from traffic accidents. The body that the coroner's staff took wasn't Autin's. *** Toe tag mishap *** At this point, there is a dispute. While Romig said Autin was clearly identified with a toe tag, Orleans Parish Coroner Frank Minyard said Autin's toe tag was on the other man's body. "Occasionally, this happens," Minyard said. "Thank the good Lord this doesn't happen a lot. If that family had not asked for a copy of the autopsy report . . ." Even though they had been too distraught to look at his massively injured body at the hospital, Autin's son and two daughters had questions about the way their father died, questions that led them to request the autopsy report. They picked it up after burying their father in Raceland, next to his wife of 47 years. Amid the thicket of medical terminology, they found evidence that something was very much awry. The tipoff was the coroner's description of "a slim and slender man appearing somewhat younger than the stated age." That struck them as odd. "My daddy was never skinny," Prattini said. In fact, she said, her father was fat and bald. Then they got to the description of the risque tattoo on his buttock. The scar from leg surgery. And the condition of his gallbladder. Autin had no tattoo, as far as they knew, had never had a leg operation, and his gallbladder had been removed years earlier. When the siblings started asking questions, Autin's body was found, still in Charity's morgue. An exhumation followed, and, on April 29, 1995, a second burial. "Getting the coffin into the tomb seemed a bit more difficult this time," Parke said. "My brother replied that it was a heavier man this time." *** $15,000 settlement *** The family sued Charity for, among other things, the cost of the second burial, and settled out of court for about $15,000, Prattini said. For its part, Charity instituted a policy that, Romig said, is designed to ensure that every effort is made to identify every patient, contact relatives and ensure the coroner leaves Charity with the right body. "We were wrong," he said, "and we've admitted our error and apologized profusely and hope that we are going to learn by our mistakes and see that it never, ever happens again." But the new policy can't take away the guilt that still haunts Prattini. "I wasn't there when my daddy died," she said. "I would have been there no matter what." No relatives were at Charity when Frank Chetti died either. He was the Wisconsin-born man who was briefly buried in Raceland, Minyard said. Chetti, who was believed to be in his late 50s, died of a brain injury suffered when he fell off his balcony on Brainard Street. The coroner's office kept his body while searching for relatives for six months, Minyard said. When no one showed up to claim him, his body was buried in potter's field.