A family was told their dad at a Jersey vets home was rebounding from coronavirus. He wasn't.
It was the best news Steve Mastropietro could have hoped to receive.
His 91-year-old father had made a near-miraculous rebound on Saturday morning after being diagnosed two days before with COVID-19. A nurse at the New Jersey Veterans Home in Paramus said Tom Mastropietro no longer had a fever. The Korean War veteran had not only eaten breakfast, but even walked to the bathroom unaided.
“I was stunned but happy,” Steve said. “He looked like hell the last time I saw him. They made me think he had turned a corner.”
Four hours later, the nursing staff called again. They had made a terrible mistake.
Tom Mastropietro had died hours earlier.
Steve would soon learn that his father and another patient were given the wrong identification bands amid the chaos that had overtaken the Paramus nursing home in recent weeks as coronavirus tore through the facility, infecting dozens of residents and staff.
Tom's body had even been taken to the other man's funeral home to be prepared for cremation the next day — Tom's wishes were to be buried next to his wife. It was a funeral home worker who noticed two medical bracelets on the body with different names.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/18/coronavirus-new-jersey-veterans-home-misidentifies-body/5154674002/
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I hope they can somehow make it up to him.
