A mother is grieving after a hospital mix-up caused her to believe her daughter was alive.
Alexandria Allen, 30, was great with people but also struggled with drug abuse. Her mother believes that’s why she was rushed to Barnes Jewish Hospital at 2:00 a.m. on Jan. 13.
She died two hours later, but a hospital spokesperson said no one could identify her.
Carol Dement, Allen’s mother, called the hospital desperate to find her daughter. After a couple of days, Barnes gave her some news.
“That’s when they came back and told me, she’s down in ER, she’ll be discharged at 19:00 hours,” Dement said.
However, the next night she received another call after a medical examiner identified Allen from her fingerprints.
The hospital spokesperson had this to say about the mix-up:
“Unfortunately, while our team was helping the mother to find her daughter several days after her death, we created the impression she was in the emergency room because she had been a patient here in the past and we misinterpreted our patient admission information. We apologize for our miscommunication and we are sorry for her loss.”