Chief Deputy Ben Houchin of the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday that they have yet to find a reason to impose charges after a woman who was pronounced dead was found alive after being transported to the funeral home. Screen capture courtesy of Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office/Facebook
June 4 (UPI) — Authorities in Nebraska said a woman who was pronounced dead at her nursing home was found alive two hours later at the funeral parlor.
Chief Deputy Ben Houchin of the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office identified the woman in a press conference as 74-year-old Constance Glantz of Lincoln, Neb.
He said she was a resident at the Mulberry at Waverly nursing home in Waverly, Neb., just outside of Lincoln, where she was receiving hospice care.
The nursing home pronounced Glantz dead Tuesday morning at 9:44 a.m., Houchin said, stating its employees then transported the body of a person “they believed was deceased” to the funeral home.
At the funeral home, an employee was placing Glantz on to a table to start “their process” when they noticed she was breathing and called emergency services.
A spokeswoman for Lincoln Fire and Rescue said funeral home employees were performing C.P.R. on Glantz when they arrived at the scene.
Glantz was then transported to a local hospital where she was declared alive, Houchin said.
“This is a very unusual case,” he said. “I’ve been doing this 31 years and nothing like this has ever gotten to this point.”
Glantz’s family has been notified, he said.
“At this point, we have not been able to find criminal intent by the nursing home, but the investigating is ongoing,” he added.
Asked what could be done to prevent other people from falsely being declared dead at nursing homes, Houchin said he expects the home to re-examine its practices.
“I’m sure the nursing homes and everybody is going to be taking a look into what has happened and i’m sure they’ll look and see if new protocols need to be made or if they were all followed,” he said. “Other than that, I don’t know.”