How did no one notice the wrong boy was alive for 3 weeks

[NewYearss]

So in Yorkshire the police have mixed up two boys, one who died in a crash and one on life support. They told the wrong family their boy had died and the other that their son was still alive.
I just don’t understand how this wasn’t picked up for three weeks. Surely the family visiting the wrong boy in hospital would notice straight away?

There are some desperately sad stories on this thread - I'm so very sorry. My heart goes out to everyone who has experienced the trauma of having a loved one in ITU or has had to identify them.

This story is such a strange and distressing one. I can't imagine what the parents of the two boys involved must be going through. As a mum of an 18-year-old, it terrifies me. I can conceive, though, of parents too distraught to look too closely at a badly injured face, taking in the general build and hair colour of a boy who looks similar, whom they've been told is believed to be their son. My son and his friends all seem to wear the same teen uniform of baggy jeans or black joggers, Carhartt/Nike/Adidas hoodies and North Face jackets. This could all feed into a highly distressed parent mistakenly identifying a child as theirs, especially if they didn't know the other child involved. My dad spent time in ITU on a ventilator, and even without external injuries (he had meningitis), he looked so different when he was that unwell and covered in tubes and monitors. It's all just awful, but anyone saying 'I would have known' - it's not that simple when you're in the depths of it.

There was a similar tragic case in Canada about five years ago involving the Humboldt Broncos ice hockey team. The mistake was resolved within a few hours in that case though.

I wonder if @zurigo would repeat her heartless remarks to these parents, face to face - or would she finally realise that how unkind and cruel her words actually are.

These parents were in a traumatic and horrifying situation, and what happens was no-one’s fault, nor does it make any of them inferior parents.

@zurigo - medical professionals, with actual, real life experience are telling you that it is possible for someone to be completely unrecognisable even to their nearest and dearest. Clearly you have never been in their position, or in the position of these boys’ parents, hence your naive belief that nothing would stop you recognising your child - but maybe, just maybe you could listen to some of the accounts on here and realise how unfeeling and smug your post looked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistaken_Identity:_Two_Families,_One_Survivor,_Unwavering_Hope

As others have said, tragic cases of incorrect identification have occurred before.

My family member had to be identified by their hair colour and body shape. The police wouldn't let relatives see them (despite me asking to). Their work manager was called in to do it. Secondary confirmation was by personal belongings found severely damaged but partly recognisable.

I was just coming to mention those boys, iirc they'd all bleached their hair for the playoffs so that plus facial injuries meant even the family confirmed the ID of their injured son only for him to wake up and say "But I'm [actual name]". Very sad, still think of them often! I believe one of the team was becoming a promising sled hockey player in the aftermath, I wonder if he may have made it to the upcoming winter paralympics...

All of you supermums who would definitely recognise that the broken body in the bed was not their own child - has it crossed you mind what that recognition would mean? It would mean that your child was dead. Can you imagine a world in which any doubt would be firmly supressed?

I think some of the insensitive comments are driven by the 'wouldn't happen to me' protective instinct but also there has been a wee spate of videos on Instagram of mother picking out their children by smell, by feeling their face, by their feet. The implication is very, very clear - they're not just harmless sweet videos but part of the wider pressure on mothers.

Maybe with injuries. +Tubes and machines given how similar the boys look and trauma of loved ones, a contributing factor.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj4l8g5vwggo

Heart goes out to all involved.

A 19yo has been arrested for perverting the course of justice in relation to the incident/crash. It’s an odd thing to be arrested for.

And once you know that intensive care ‘smell’ you never, ever forget it!

I found this odd too, when watching the news. But, I don't know enough about it, from the articles and news though. I don't know how bandaged he was, or how close a parent got to him in those 3 weeks, but my natural assumption was that I'd like to think that I'd know my ds1 or ds2 from their friends, because I've studied their bodies recently when ill, had rashes, looked at both their hands and feet recently checking for healthiness, checked their teeth re braces coming off etc. But still shocking the mis- identification aspect.

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius

No, I agree with @PattiPatty, re @zurigo

all she was saying was that unfortunately along with all the other feelings and issues there will now be that extra stage of shame and regret and puzzlement and a misunderstanding by the other parents, of how they didn't spot it before. Thats all part of the grief, part of the journey, now aswell. Sadly. And that part is slightly unusual. It's not a normal part of most cases. Hence being ok the news. Now all the publicity aswell. Which just makes the whole thing worse.

Perhaps they lied about who was driving?

And not one single person has mentioned the fathers.

I partially regret posting on this thread; I think it shouldn’t exist in a world where people connected to this can read it. It’s staggering lack of empathy is scary.

How often are you inspecting your children’s bodies/hands/feet/teeth?

When they’re little probably but when they’re adults or near enough?! That’s not a thing.

This explains how it all happened. I hope a lot of lessons are learned.

My thoughts remain with the families and friends of both boys.

Thank you for that link. And oh gosh they look similar.

I just feel for all the families.

I hope a lot of lessons are learned.

That is horrific.

It reads as if the surviving boy woke up with the wrong family around him.

What a nightmare.

Exactly, I haven't seen my 17yos feet for bloody ages, I couldn't pick them out of a line up if I tried. If I started trying to inspect them now they would, quite rightly, be weirded out.

My 8yos are a different story I see them all the time, and I probably could under usual circumstances.

However the circumstances here were beyond horrific.

It's absolutely not about how close the parents are to their child, teens have autonomy and privacy, as they should, and that's without the injuries, and equipment involved.

It's hard for some to comprehend the level of care you give to a smaller child isn't required for an adult and so you wouldn't automatically know, however much anyone insists that they definitely would.

Some of the comments on here are disgusting 🤬

And also batshit - you'd recognise your "critically injured" child's eyelashes FFS??

They do look similar on there. On the pictures released by our local rag (it happened very close to where I live) they looked different. They printed a really unflattering photo of Trevor which now looks to be an older one.

Thank you for sharing this link - it clears everything up, including whether dental records can be used to identify teenagers (yes).

The two boys do look very similar, and I know from experience that all of my son's friends dress exactly the same way and have the same coat. I can easily see how this happened. I don't quite understand how the police arbitrarily assigned ID found at the scene when it wasn't on either boy's person, but the fault seems to lie with lack of rigour around identifying the poor lad that died.

I am so, so sorry for both families. It is unimaginable. My son is 17 and has started driving round with his friends and it scares me to death. I don't live too far from Dinnington and this story chilled me before the horrifying sting in its tail. So much love to the two families that lost Summer and Joshua, and I really hope Trevor's recovery goes well.