An Iowa care facility is looking at receiving fines of over $10,000 after mistakenly pronouncing a 66-year-old resident dead and having her transported to a funeral home, where she woke up “gasping for air.”
The woman is an unknown resident of the Glen Oaks Alzheimer’s Special Care Center since Dec. 2021, was moved into hospice care at the facility on Dec. 28, 2022, because of “senile degeneration of the brain.”
Over a few times, hospice care staff found that the woman had “diminished” lung sounds and was having minor seizures. On Jan. 3, 2023, the woman was pronounced dead at 6 a.m. after an employee identified as Staff C said that she “did not feel a pulse” and found the “resident was not breathing at that time.”
The woman was moved to a funeral home, where the director placed her inside of a body bag, which was zipped up – around 7:30 a.m.. At roughly 8:30a.m. at Ankeny Funeral Home and Crematory unzipped the bag after hearing the woman gasping for air.