A 74-year-old woman believed to have died while in hospice care was found to be breathing after being transported to a funeral home, authorities in Nebraska said Monday.
The woman had been transported from a nursing home, where she had been declared dead at around 9:44 a.m. local time, to the Butherus-Maser & Love Funeral Home in Lincoln on Monday morning, according to the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities responded to the funeral home after an employee noticed the woman was breathing and “instantly called 911” at approximately 11:44 a.m., according to Lancaster County Chief Deputy Ben Houchin.
I do not understand how this happens. Really and truly. It is so easy to check if someone is breathing and several people are involved when it comes to moving a body to a funeral home. How does literally nobody notice ANY sign of life?
I’m sure there’s a legitimate answer but I really do struggle to comprehend this phenomenon.
Edit: I know it’s real/happens/isn’t always the result of incompetence. I feel like I was clear lol it’s just one of those things I am always baffled by despite all the rational answers. It’s a cognitive dissonance thing. Like people who are afraid of flying on planes but get in cars every day.
If she’s cold, has an extremely faint pulse, and is barely breathing… She’s already in hospice care, she’s expected to die. If her vital signs become so faint as to be undetectable, they think it finally happened. Then after a while, they get a little stronger, enough to be noticed.
While my experience of elder care paints a picture of negligence there are also documented cases where people “die” and then “stop being dead” like this.
It’s called Lazarus Syndrome. I was exposed to a case once at a large ER while waiting for a bed for my own patient (hello, am paramedic). Not too much to say about it, the ED staff were working a code, like they do, and called it. About twenty minutes later, some staff was in the room cleaning up when they noticed the patient breathing and told the nurses. Staff came running like hell and worked them for another 15-20 minutes before calling it again. Weird shit, and pretty unusual in my experience, AFAIK we still don’t understand the mechanism behind it.
Thank you for your service.
Thanks, I appreciate it
You need to re watch the Princess Bride
It could be partially a numbers game. Think about accidents that happen during surgery that should never happen. People die all the time. Eventually, you will have a stack up of human errors even when we assume the best intentions.
Nursing homes and the entire home care industry have been thoroughly ransacked by private equity.
And what’s even more pernicious about this case of corporate raiding, is that the public actually believes the lie that these industries and businesses are not profitable.
They are highly profitable, but all the funds are siphoned off and legally embezzled the way private equity always does: exhorbanant consulting fees and switching the vendors and suppliers to their own companies, and jacking up the rates they charge themselves.
And that’s before you even get into the favorable legislation they purchase through donations, and the refusal to adequately staff the companies.
https://www.levernews.com/how-wall-street-profits-off-of-the-sick-and-elderly-private-equity-nursing-homes/
I am sadly all too aware of the effect of PE firms on these institutions. They destroy everything they touch.
Why do you think Wakes are a thing?