Mother takes wrong body home in tragic mix-up at Phatthalung Hospital

Phatthalung Hospital confirmed on Thursday that it had mistakenly released a dead body to the wrong family, due to mistaken identity.

The mother of one of two accident victims had wrongly believed the body was her son’s and the family did not realise the mistake until the third day of the funeral. 

Two 17-year-old boys were sent to the hospital on Sunday night following a road accident on Highway No 41 in Phatthalung’s Khuan Khanun district. 

According to Dr Ketthip Buakaew, the hospital’s deputy director, the two boys had suffered severe injuries after their motorbike collided with a trailer truck and were immediately taken to the ICU. The boys were  later identified as Thanakrit and Phongsaphak (surnames withheld).

Dr Ketthip said a woman called Amarawadee, showed up at the hospital, claiming to be Phongsaphak’s mother while staffers were performing CPR on Thanakrit, whom she mistook as her son.

Thanakrit later succumbed to injuries, and Amarawadee mistakenly confirmed his identity as Phongsaphak before taking the body home for funeral rites. 

“It was nobody’s fault. Both young men looked alike and were transferred from Khuan Khanun Hospital without proper identification,” Dr Ketthip said, adding that Phongsaphak is still being treated at the hospital and is now stable.

The hospital has pledged to implement stricter protocols for verifying patient identities in the future, including checking physical identity markers such as tattoos and scars, in addition to consultation with family members. 

Amarawadee said the family realised their mistake on Wednesday after speaking with Thanakrit’s mother, who has been in Nakhon Si Thammarat for the funeral since Monday. 

She recounted that Thanakrit’s mother said the hospital needed Type A blood to treat the boy in hospital, but she knew her son was Type B. The two mothers then exchanged information and realised that the dead body was in fact Thanakrit.

Amarawadee said she would not take legal action against the hospital, explaining that she had not seen the young man’s full face as it was half covered in bandage and the other half was severely disfigured.