"My Mom Doesn't Seem Like Her..." University Hospital Mixes Up Deceased Bodies

Funeral Director Miscommunicates with Bereaved Family
Family Discovers Error During Final Pre-Funeral Check

An absurd incident occurred at a funeral hall of a national university hospital in Cheongju, Chungbuk, where a funeral was nearly held with switched corpses.

The photo is unrelated to the article content. [Photo credit=Getty Images]

According to Chungbuk National University Hospital on the 24th, the previous afternoon, a funeral director at the hospital mistakenly handed over the wrong corpse to the bereaved family.

The bereaved family, who wanted to see their mother's last appearance before the funeral, realized the corpses had been switched and informed the hospital of this fact.

The hospital is known to have mistakenly brought the corpse from the room next to the bereaved family's mourning room during the embalming process (washing the deceased's body, dressing it in a shroud, and tying it with a mortuary band).

A hospital official stated, "We have apologized to the bereaved family and reached an agreement," adding, "We will ensure that such an incident does not happen again."

Earlier in June, a bereaved family who held a funeral at this hospital raised an issue that the corpse had decomposed due to the high temperature of the hospital's corpse storage refrigerator.

The hospital said, "It is difficult to determine a causal relationship between the refrigerator malfunction and the decomposition of the corpse," but also stated, "Since an unfortunate incident occurred at the hospital, we compensated on a moral basis."