Pathologists mix up two dead bodies, persuade relatives humans change after death

Relatives of the deceased man received the body of a different person from morgue

Forty-three-year-old Sergey Sitov was found dead in his apartment on August 3rd. His relatives still do not know the reason of his sudden death. Pathologists mixed up the bodies and Sergey's relatives received the document based on the expertise of another deceased individual.

”I lost two very dear people of mine in almost three weeks. At first my grandmother passed away, Sergey died in 18 days. When he died, all our relatives were on the edge of the nervous breakdown,” Vologda resident Alexander Sitov said.

“On August 5th we were waiting for Sergey's body outside the morgue. We were shocked, when we finally received the body. Instead of our tall and black-haired Sergey we saw the body of a fat bald-headed man,” Maria said.

The relatives were flabbergasted. When they asked pathologists whose body was it, they simply said the clothes on the body were Sergey's, the body was labeled with Sergey's number and name. Specialists were persistently persuading the relatives the fat man was Sergey Sitov. They said human beings change after death.

”We were infuriated. We have recently read an article in a local newspaper about some people, who had buried someone else's relative. We could not imagine we would have to look for Sergey's body and exhume it from somebody else's grave,” Andrey Makarov, the husband of Sergey's sister said.

When the Sitovs said they would sue the morgue, a senior medical expert came out to apologize. Andrey Makarov started writing a statement, but the expert asked him “not to commit such a silly action.” The morgue apologized, and it was ready to compensate the damage (the unknown dead man was dressed in the new suit the Sitovs bought for the funeral ceremony). “We did not want to hear anything. We told them to do whatever they wanted, but we needed to bury Sergey that day,” Alexander said.

When pathologists finally found Sergey's body, it turned out the ordered procedures had not been executed, although the Sitovs had paid for them. The relatives were shocked again on the graveyard: the casket they ordered was small for Sergey's body. They could not close the casket lid because of Sergey's legs. They eventually bended the legs in knees and covered the lid. Sergey Sitov's relatives feel guilty of burying their brother in a small casket. They intend to head to court.

Yevgeny Sokolov, an administrator of the Vologda morgue said Sitov's incident would be investigated. The messy situation took place soon after the bodies arrived. “Our pathologists received two bodies. People from the Ritual firm gave them instructions, and pathologists mixed up the autopsy results,” Yevgeny Sokolov said. The doctor added he sympathized with the Sitov's grief, although he asks for understanding too: “We receive more bodies than we did previously. The morgue premises became small.” Yevgeny Sokolov and morgue employees do not understand the Sitov's intention to sue the morgue, because they have presented their apologies.

The death of a dear person and the funeral ceremony is obviously the last opportunity to bid farewell to the deceased. It is very hard to turn a blind eye on such absurd and ridiculous negligence.