Family Learns of Body Mix-Up Just Minutes Before Funeral

Relatives and friends had already gathered in a church when the dead man’s son received an urgent call: “Please come to our offices immediately. We have something important to tell you.”

The family then learned that Leonardo, an 87-year-old man who had died the previous Thursday, had been switched with a woman’s body at the morgue of Careggi University Hospital in Florence. He had been cremated by mistake, while the woman’s body was still awaiting cremation.

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Please come to our offices immediately. We have something important to tell you.

The ashes were kept at the crematorium under the woman’s name. According to reports, no one in the family had checked whether the coffin contained the correct body before the funeral preparations began. The son said: “They told me that my father had been cremated by mistake. I could not believe it.” The relatives then contacted the Carabinieri.

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They told me that my father had been cremated by mistake. I could not believe it.

The family has decided to seek help from a lawyer and has not ruled out criminal or civil proceedings. The son said the mistake meant he had not been given the chance to see his father one last time, say goodbye and hold a memorial Mass. He also expressed regret for the woman’s family, who had ended up with his father’s ashes.

The family further discovered that the death certificate for the elderly man allegedly carried the wrong date of death.

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They did not give me the chance to see my father one last time, say goodbye to him and hold a Mass in his memory.