A hospital in Chicago is in hot water after allowing the wrong family to give consent to switch, who they thought was their “brother”, off life support, according to a lawsuit.
The man police identified as Alfonso Bennett was taken to Mercy Hospital in Chicago in April after he was found lying naked and unconscious beneath a car with facial injuries.
In May the hospital contacted the relatives of the man and informed them of the situation.
They then decided to take him off life support and began the tough job of planning a funeral for him but those plans went out the window when Mr Bennett shockingly reappeared at a family barbeque.
After police fingerprinted the man in the morgue who died they confirmed the dead mans name to be Elisha Brittman - not Alfonso Bennett.
Mr Brittman's real family were eventually contacted.
Both families are suing the hospital and Chicago for "negligence and inflicting emotional distress".
Rosie Brookes, Mr Bennett's sister, expressed her doubts when she went to visit him.
“I said ‘how did you all verify this was my brother?’ in my heart I could not recognise him," she said.
The hospital staff told Ms Brookes she could not recognise him because of the extent of his injuries and suggested she was still coming to terms with what had happened.
State Senator Patricia Van Pelt said police should have used fingerprinting or DNA immediately to establish the identity of the man before the confusion.
"To say that we currently have questions is an understatement," Chicago police chief communications officer, Anthony Guglielmi, tweeted in June.
"We have detectives looking into every aspect of this incident," he added.
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