OK, this is coming from left field, but remember how everyone was blaming Nick for screwing up that identity on that burned corpse in the episode with the body jammed down the chimney? How everyone was complaining that it was him and only him who made an assumption about the man's identity based on the ID he'd located on the body? Well, read this:
"Families spend weeks mistaken about who survived
By Russell Working and Tim Jones, Tribune staff reporters. Russell Working reported from Michigan and Tim Jones from Chicago; Tribune staff reporter James Kimberly in Chicago contributed to this repor
June 1, 2006
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- In a tragic case of mistaken identity, the family of an Indiana college student believed to have survived a multiple-fatality crash in late April said Wednesday that their daughter was dead, while the parents of a student thought to have died in that collision learned their daughter was alive in a Michigan hospital.
The sad and extraordinary story came to light on a Web log set up by the family of Laura VanRyn, a 22-year-old student from Caledonia, Mich. Her relatives had kept a five-week vigil at the Grand Rapids hospital bed of a young woman they thought was their daughter.
Uncertainty about the woman's identity grew this week as she regained consciousness, and dental records confirmed the woman the VanRyn family had been watching over was actually 18-year-old Whitney Cerak of Gaylord, Mich.
The Cerak family had unknowingly buried VanRyn on April 30 in the Michigan woods about 180 miles north of Grand Rapids.
"Our hearts are aching as we have learned that the young woman we have been taking care of over the past five weeks has not been our dear Laura, but instead a fellow Taylor student of hers," the VanRyns said on their blog.
Authorities in Indiana were trying to unravel the heartbreaking mix-up on Wednesday, five weeks after five people--including four students from Taylor University, a small evangelical Christian college in Upland, Ind.--were killed in a crash on Interstate Highway 69, in Grant County near Marion, Ind.
"It's just mind-blowing to consider," said Grant County Prosecutor James Luttrell Jr.
Confusion set in quickly in the hectic moments after the deadly April 26 crash involving a semi-tractor trailer loaded with baking flour and the Taylor University van, returning from nearby Ft. Wayne. Grant County Coroner Ron Mowery, whose office handled the death investigations, apologized during a news conference for the mix-up.
Mowery described an accident scene where purses and wallets were strewn and that acquaintances of the students had identified the survivor taken to a Ft. Wayne hospital as VanRyn. He said no scientific testing was conducted to verify the identifications. One of the other students killed was a Chicago-area woman, Laurel Erb, 20, of St. Charles.
Luttrell said Cerak was airlifted from the crash scene with VanRyn's identification, which contained a photograph.
"I can't stress enough that we did everything we knew to do under those circumstances, and trusted the same processes and the same policies that we always do," Mowery told reporters Wednesday in Marion.
"And this tragedy unfolded like we could never have imagined," he added.
The truth about the identities of the two young women began to take shape in recent days, as the VanRyns watched Cerak slowly recover from serious head and neck wounds at a Grand Rapids rehabilitation center for victims of brain damage.
Doubts began to mount
Bruce Rossman, a spokesman for Spectrum Health System in Grand Rapids, said the VanRyn family's doubts mounted as Cerak gained more awareness of her surroundings.
In a Monday entry on the blog (lauravanryn.blogspot.com) that tracked the patient's physical progress, the VanRyns noted, "Her clarity continues to improve." But they added, "While certain things seem to be coming back to her, she still has times where she'll say things that don't make much sense."
Rossman said some remarks, in particular, shook the VanRyns' belief in the young woman's identity.
"They said a couple of times they called her Laura and she said, `No, Whitney,'" he said.
Acting on suspicions, the two families conferred on Tuesday, Rossman said, and requested dental records be checked. By Tuesday night the families knew the individual in the hospital bed was not Laura VanRyn. Twelve hours later, or midmorning Wednesday, dental records proved that person was Whitney Cerak.
Rossman said he did not know the specific nature of Cerak's injuries or the extent to which her identity would have been obscured by wounds, bandages or other markings.
"There was some general trauma associated with the accident, including bruising and swelling," Rossman said.
The families issued a joint statement Wednesday, saying these "two wonderful young women shared a striking similarity in size, hair, facial features and body type.
"Our families are supporting each other in prayer, and we thank our families, friends and communities for their prayers," they said.
Shock in VanRyn's hometown
In Laura VanRyn's hometown of Caledonia, friends and residents were stunned. Memorial Day flags were still flying along Main Street in the community of 1,100 people, when the local schools sent home a flyer saying Laura VanRyn was dead.
Monte Munjoy, a middle school physical education teacher who knew VanRyn, said teachers were given the news at a staff meeting "and everybody's jaw just hit the floor."
"We thought she was the sole survivor of the accident," Munjoy said.
Brenda Tuttle, whose son attended school with VanRyn, called the news devastating.
"You can't imagine losing a child, then you think your daughter is gone but she's not, or you think your daughter is alive but is not," Tuttle said. "I can't imagine how you would handle something like that."
Taylor University issued a statement saying, "One can only imagine what impact this new development has had upon the VanRyn and Cerak families as they process this information."
The mix-up has eerie similarities to the aftermath of a 2004 fatal auto accident, when Michigan authorities mistook a disfigured corpse for 17-year-old Patrick Bement. Three days later, officials discovered their mistake, identifying the deceased as 16-year-old Nathaniel Smith, a rider in the car with Bement, who survived.
Five weeks have passed since the newspaper in Gaylord, the Herald Times, noted the death of Whitney Cerak in an obituary. It read "She lived a wonderful, full, but short life. . . . She is now living with Him in heaven." The casket was closed for her funeral.
Now, stunningly, the bedside vigil has changed, with Cerak's mother and aunt tending to the 18-year-old. Cerak's father, who had been attending a meeting in New York, was scheduled to arrive in Grand Rapids on Wednesday evening.
Rossman said Cerak "has made good progress since arriving May 18."
A memorial service for VanRyn is scheduled Sunday in Grand Rapids."
