Unimaginable loss
Family's Year-Long Search Ends in Heartbreak After Hospital's Fatal Error
A California family discovers their daughter had died in a hospital after being wrongly told she was discharged.
In a tragic and deeply disturbing incident, the family of Jessie Marie Peterson, a 31-year-old woman from Sacramento, California, has filed a lawsuit against Mercy San Juan Medical Center and its parent company, CommonSpirit Health. The lawsuit, filed in August 2024, alleges that the hospital mistakenly informed the family that Peterson had been discharged, when in fact, she had died while under the hospital’s care. The miscommunication led to a harrowing year-long search by the family, who believed she was missing, only to later discover that her body had been stored in the hospital’s morgue all along.
Jessie Peterson, a Type 1 diabetic since childhood, was admitted to Mercy San Juan Medical Center on April 6, 2023, following a diabetic emergency. According to the lawsuit, Peterson died two days later, on April 8, 2023, due to complications related to her condition. However, instead of notifying her family, the hospital reportedly told Peterson's mother, Ginger Congi, that her daughter had checked out of the facility against medical advice. This incorrect information prompted a desperate search by her family, who filed a missing persons report and posted her details on various missing persons websites.
For nearly a year, the Peterson family was left in the dark, enduring unimaginable anxiety and grief as they searched for Jessie. The family alleges that they made numerous attempts to contact the hospital and local authorities, hoping to locate her. It wasn’t until April 2024, almost a full year after her death, that a detective from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office informed them that Jessie’s body had been in cold storage at one of the hospital's off-site facilities the entire time.
The lawsuit claims that Mercy San Juan Medical Center failed to fulfill its legal obligation to inform the family of Jessie’s death and to issue a timely death certificate. According to California law, a death certificate should be completed within 15 hours of death. In this case, the death certificate was reportedly not issued until April 2024, 361 days after Jessie’s passing, which the family argues is a gross violation of state law and hospital protocol.
The lawsuit accuses the hospital of negligence, emotional distress, and mishandling of a corpse. The family is seeking more than $5 million in damages, highlighting the profound emotional trauma and distress they have endured due to the hospital's actions. In response, CommonSpirit Health, the hospital's parent organization, expressed its condolences to the family but declined to comment on the specifics of the case due to the ongoing litigation.
This case has raised serious concerns about the internal communication protocols within hospitals and the devastating consequences that can arise from such failures. The Peterson family’s ordeal underscores the importance of transparency, timely communication, and accountability in healthcare settings, particularly in situations involving the death of a patient.
As the legal proceedings unfold, the Peterson family hopes to find some measure of justice for Jessie, whose death was not only a personal tragedy but also a stark reminder of the systemic issues that can exist within healthcare institutions. The case also serves as a call to action for healthcare providers to ensure that they adhere to the highest standards of patient care and family communication, to prevent such a heartbreaking situation from occurring again.
