THE WRONG CORPSE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3776, 8 October 1907, Page 3

THE WRONG CORPSE.

Mr W. T. Sadd, of Oroua Bridge, writes to the Palmerston Standard as follows :

“ The following are a few statements I desire printed in reference to the death and burial in Palmereton North of my brother, Alfred Henry Sadd ;—He was admitted on the 22nd inst. to the Palmerston Hospital, suffering, to the best of our knowledge, from rheumatic fever, and died there on the following Thursday morning. His remains were laid out on a stretcher in the and on a slab were also the remains of another man who had died about the same time and who closely resembled my brother in features. Upon application by the undertaker for the body of the latter, he was given the corpse on the slab in mistake. This person I am informed, had died of consumption, and his remains lay in the house of my late brother for twenty-four hours before being again removed to the Hospital. The undertaker, who knew my brother well, remarked to the lady who received the corpse at the house that she had better warn the relatives of deceased that he had changed very much after death, and that they should not recognise him. The widow and relatives thought that he had altered very much, but, grieved at their loss, made no remarks at the time, although, shortly afterwards, some doubts .arose as to his identity owing to the fact that on his admission to the Hospital he wore a gold ring on his finder, and the corpse brought home was without one. The mistake was not discovered until the sister of the other deceased person arrived from the south to see the corpse, and when one of the Hospital staff accompanied the lady to the mortuary and removed the covering from the face, the lady exclaimed, “That is not my brother.” The secretary of the institution was at once apprised of the mistake, and the undertaker, accompanied by my father and myself, visited the Hospital, and we then realised that the wrong corpse had been removed. The corpses were changed on Friday at 10 p.m. There appears to have been great inadvertence shown at the Hospital, and I would request you to publish the above facts, as the matter has caused a good deal of comment.”