Nursing Home Mistakenly Declares 82-Year-Old Woman Dead, Woman Was Alive In Body Bag For Over 2 Hours

The family of an 82-year-old woman who was wrongly pronounced dead is suing a New York nursing home after staff mistakenly placed the woman in a body bag for over two hours despite being still alive.

Court records show Janet Balducci was at the Water’s Edge Rehabilitation & Nursing Center in Long Island when she was pronounced dead on February 4, 2022.

The nursing home proceeded to put Balducci in a body bag and sent her to the Casimir Funeral Home in Miller Place, New York, to be embalmed.

Once, on arrival, an employee at Casimir Funeral Home took Balducci’s pulse and was shocked the woman was still breathing.

The employee proceeded to call emergency services, and she was taken to a hospital, where she survived another day but later died.

Sons claim NY nursing home wrongly declared 82-year-old mom dead, stuffed her in body bag for two hours https://t.co/lRUnwiGSLS pic.twitter.com/wagv5RusWH

— New York Post (@nypost) July 11, 2024

Check out what The New York Post reported:

The family of a woman who was mistakenly declared dead and placed in a body bag for two hours is suing a nursing home for the unthinkable blunder, court papers allege.

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Janet Balducci had been at Water’s Edge Rehabilitation & Nursing Center in Port Jefferson, Long Island when a nurse declared her dead on Feb. 4, 2022, sending her off in a body bag to be embalmed, according to a Suffolk County Supreme Court lawsuit.

But once the 82-year-old reached the Casimir Funeral Home in Miller Place, New York an employee opened the bag to discover she was “still breathing and had a pulse,” Balducci family lawyer Peter DeNoto told The Post.

The funeral home called emergency services which brought Balducci to the hospital where she “survived for another day but ultimately passed,” DeNoto explained.

Balducci’s sons, Robert and Joseph Balducci, are suing the nursing home and the funeral home for negligence and wrongful death and are hoping the lawsuit will help them get some answers about how such an error was allowed to happen DeNoto said.

Seems it's a bit too easy to say, "Off to the embalmer's with her!" in some nursing homes.https://t.co/hckJL7FNJ5

— Sue Just Trying To Matter in Makeup/Faded Blujeans (@MakeupFaded) July 12, 2024

Per The Daily Mail:

The family of an 82-year-old woman who was pronounced dead at a New York nursing home are demanding answers after after she was later found to be breathing two hours later at the funeral home.

Janet Balducci was thought to have died mid-morning on February 4, 2023 at the Water’s Edge Rehab and Nursing Center in Port Jefferson on New York’s Long Island.

Balducci’s body was then driven from the nursing home to Casimir Funeral Home in nearby Miller Place, some six miles away, to be embalmed.

Just as funeral parlor workers were ready to tend to Balducci’s body they noticed the cadaver that lay before them was still had a pulse.

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Now the family, Balducci’s two sons, Robert and Joseph Balducci, are looking for an explanation as to how the mix-up occurred in what has been termed as ‘extreme and outrageous conduct’ in a lawsuit filed by the family which is taking on a two-pronged approach.