A 74-year-old woman believed to have died while in hospice care was found to be breathing after being transported to a funeral home, authorities in Nebraska said Monday.
The woman had been transported from a nursing home, where she had been declared dead at around 9:44 a.m. local time, to the Butherus-Maser & Love Funeral Home in Lincoln on Monday morning, according to the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities responded to the funeral home after an employee noticed the woman was breathing and “instantly called 911” at approximately 11:44 a.m., according to Lancaster County Chief Deputy Ben Houchin.
This is unfortunately not super uncommon. Older patients, especially women in palliative care are sometimes so close to death that the transition can be hard to detect. Things like heart rate and breathing can be so faint and slow that it can be extremely difficult to detect without equipment usually not found in most nursing homes. And when the patient is in this state, they can physically appear to be deceased.
That, and end of life care is horrible in America. It’s so profit driven that the facilities only hire the legally mandated amount of licenced professional to operate.
I work in orthopedics and rehabilitation, and a large part of my last job was providing specialty care at nursing homes. I’ve had the unfortunate experience showing up to a nursing home and finding my patient deceased when the employees just thought they were sleeping.