As if funerals weren't awful enough, the family of a deceased Westchester woman says the city medical examiner returned her body for burial with her organs in buckets, and they're taking legal action.
Rhoda Callwood, 82, died recently at New York Presbyterian, and family members requested that both the hospital and the medical examiner perform her autopsies. But when the body was delivered to a Bronx funeral home, workers discovered that Callwood's organs had been removed and placed in two buckets. "I have been a funeral director for 20 years now, and I have never seen a body transferred without the organs inside," Bill Curran, the director of John FX McKeon and Son Funeral Home, told ABC News.
The medical examiner's office says they received Callwood's body with the organs removed, and didn't want to re-open her body since the funeral home would be preparing it. Meanwhile, New York Presbyterian told ABC News: "The Medical Examiner's office says it didn't intend to add to the family's grief, but their normal protocol is to put organs back in bodies." The Callwoods have hired an attorney, and say they had to speed up the burial because of the mix-up; they also say Callwood was buried with the organs next to her, and that they are having them DNA-tested to ensure they belong to their family member. "I am so confused with everything going on, I don't have time to mourn, really," Callwood's daughter, Glenda Callwood, said.
