A woman has been found alive in a body bag at a funeral home after she was wrongly pronounced dead.
The 66-year-old was pronounced dead by Glen Oaks Alzheimer's Special Care Center in Urbandale in the US.
The facility was only fined $10,000 for the failure of care.
The woman, who was not been named, was pronounced dead and put into a zipped body bag.
She was then taken to Ankeny Funeral Home & Crematory where workers found her breathing.
Glen Oaks Alzheimer's Special Care Center
She was then taken to Ankeny Funeral Home & Crematory where workers found her breathing.
They called 911 for support and the woman was taken to hospital.
She had early onset dementia, anxiety and depression and arrived at the hospital breathing but unresponsive.
She was then returned to hospice care but died on January 5th surrounded by family, just two days after the incident.
A nurse who was caring for her said she was unable to find a pulse on the woman and that she wasn’t breathing on the night she was put into the body bag.
After five minutes of assessing her, she ruled that she was dead.
Several other staff members said they could find no signs of life on the woman.
It was deemed the care centre had "failed to provide adequate direction to ensure appropriate cares and services were provided”.
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After an investigation by the department of inspections and appeals, it was deemed the care centre had "failed to provide adequate direction to ensure appropriate cares and services were provided”.
Executive director of the Glen Oaks Alzheimer's Special Care Center, Lisa Eastman, said in a statement” “We care deeply for our residents and remain fully committed to supporting their end-of-life care,
"All employees undergo regular training so they can best support end-of-life care and the death of our residents."
