Couple sues Boston hospital over loss of baby’s body

BOSTON — A Massachusetts couple whose prematurely born child woman died lower than two weeks after she was delivered has sued considered one of Boston’s most prestigious hospitals for dropping the toddler’s physique, denying the mother and father the chance to carry a correct funeral and burial.

The lawsuit filed Thursday says that child Everleigh’s physique was inadvertently thrown away by a Brigham and Girls’s Hospital worker together with dirty linens from the hospital’s morgue.

Everleigh’s mother and father, Alana Ross and Daniel McCarthy, “suffered extreme emotional misery and anguish, and have suffered bodily manifestations and harms on account of the extreme and profound emotional misery inflicted” upon them, in keeping with the swimsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Courtroom.

“It was traumatic sufficient to lose their daughter, nevertheless it was like dropping her yet again when she was actually thrown away,” the couple’s legal professional, Greg Henning, stated Friday. “They misplaced her twice.”

The hospital, mother or father firm Mass Common Brigham, in addition to greater than a dozen workers are named as defendants. The swimsuit claims breach of contract, negligence, intentional infliction of emotional misery; and wrongful interference with human stays. The couple, who dwell in Sharon, is looking for greater than $1.3 million in damages, in keeping with courtroom paperwork.

The lawsuit alleges that Brigham and Girls’s was conscious of the “issues with administration and situations” on the morgue even earlier than Everleigh went lacking.

Dr. Sunil Eappen, the hospital’s chief medical officer, stated in a press release that whereas he can not touch upon the specifics of the case, he sympathizes with the household.

“We proceed to specific our deepest sympathies and most honest apologies to the Ross and McCarthy household for his or her loss and the heartbreaking circumstances surrounding it,” he stated. “As with all occasion in which there’s a priority raised associated to our normal of care or apply, we readily and transparently shared the main points with the affected person’s household.”

McCarthy, 37, and Ross, 36, who’ve been in a dedicated relationship for years and had been engaged in 2019, had been “thrilled” once they came upon on Feb. 20, 2020, that Ross was pregnant after a number of makes an attempt to have a toddler, Henning stated.

Everleigh was delivered prematurely on July 25, 2020, weighing 2 kilos, 5 ounces (1 kg). She “suffered medical problems” and was transferred to intensive care.

Her mother and father held Everleigh for the primary time on Aug. 1, learn to her, maintained a relentless vigil, and had her baptized earlier than she died in her mom’s arms on Aug. 6, 2020.

Her swaddled physique was transferred to the hospital morgue to offer Ross and McCarthy a couple of days to make funeral preparations. However, in keeping with the swimsuit, a hospital worker positioned the infant on a desk that was “not the suitable or the designated place for the supply of toddler stays to the morgue,” as a result of one other employee was blocking the racks designed for youngsters.

Apparently, nobody knew the infant was lacking till Aug. 10 when a funeral residence consultant arrived on the hospital to choose up the physique. Everleigh couldn’t be discovered.

Her mother and father contacted Boston police on Aug. 11, who investigated and decided, by way of video surveillance and worker interviews, that Everleigh was probably thrown away with dirty linens from the morgue on Aug. 7.

Police traced the place the physique may need ended up, and on two events police investigators in addition to trash firm employees sifted by way of mountains of medical particles usually lined in blood and human waste to search out Everleigh, to no avail.

McCarthy and Ross are devoted Catholics and wished a correct funeral and burial for his or her daughter in order that they at all times had a spot they may go to her, Henning stated.

Now all they’ve is a field containing a couple of images, baptismal water, handprints, footprints and a knit hat.