NY police tell parents that son is dead _ he's not

[Liberal_in_LA]

NY police tell parents that son is dead _ he's not

Thursday, April 29, 2010

(04-29) 10:44 PDT Mastic Beach, N.Y. (AP) --

It was a 90-minute nightmare.

Alfred and Geri Esposito of Mastic Beach were told Saturday morning that their son Freddy and another passenger had been killed in a collision with a tractor-trailer on a Pennsylvania highway.

It turns out Freddy wasn't dead. He was asleep on a couch in an apartment he rents with his brother. The dead man was one of his former fraternity brothers — a revelation that both relieved and upset the Espositos.

"Ninety minutes of my life I'll never get back," Geri Esposito said Thursday. "My husband, who is a very strong man, was reduced to a puddle."

The mix-up began when Pennsylvania troopers found Freddy Esposito's driver's license in the hands of one of the men killed in the wreck — 18-year-old Paul Richards of Santa Cruz, Calif.

----------------

Older brother Chris Esposito was just starting his shift in Brooklyn as a New York Police Department officer when he got the call that his brother was dead. He left work and raced to the Bay Shore home he shared with his brother.

"He goes downstairs into his brother's apartment and he saw something on the couch," Geri Esposito recalled. After poking the lump a couple of times, his brother awoke from under the blanket.

"He screamed, `You're dead, you're dead!'" Geri Esposito said of Chris.

And Freddy counters: "I'm sleeping."

The relieved mother said when she finally got to see her son, "I touched him all over and looked at his face," she said. "I said, Thank you for being responsible for being home.'"


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/04/29/national/a080141D38.DTL#ixzz0mXfV1xpl

[Ian David]

1. Gonna guess the guy who didn't die was over 21, guy who died was under 21? n/t

[virgogal]

2. What a horror. IIRC the same thing happened to parents of

2 girls in an auto accident a while back. Misidentified. One died,one lived.

I forget where it was but I'm sure someone here will remember it.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. That mistake lasted longer... Parents visited the girl in the hospital, didn't know it wasn't their

daughter for awhile...can't remember how long.

[TroglodyteScholar]

4. Um...wasn't that an episode of House MD? n/t

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. It really happened. 2 girls in an accident. One died, other to hospital

Mix up in identity. Even parents visiting the one who lived, didn't recognize it wasn't their daughter. Other parents went thru funeral for daughter who wasn't theirs. Didn't happen that long ago.. .maybe 2 years ago.

[TroglodyteScholar]

7. Yea, I'm pretty sure you're describing an episode of House. n/t

[TheDebbieDee]

9. Well then, the episode of House must have been based on this true story!

You're being "birther"-like......mine is at least the second post stating that this mistaken identity thing really happened!

[RayOfHope]

10. Nope. Its true. Two college girls. The girls looked surprisingly alike (blonde and blue eyed)

and the one that lived was pretty swollen and bruised in the face from the wreck, so it was hard to tell. I believe she was in a coma or at the very least was non-verbal and couldn't let anyone know who she was.

[virgogal]

11. Here you go--------

http://www.squidoo.com/MistakenIdentity

[HipChick]

13. yeah.. I remember that case..

[Blue Diadem]

12. Whitney Cerak and Laura VanRyn true story

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-06-01-vanryn-cerak-cover_x.htm

[SeattleGirl]

6. Similar thing happened when I was in high school.

Two seniors had gone to the coast, and on the way back, they were in a horrific accident. One died, the other survived. The cops made incorrect identifications of which boy was which, and told the families. Once the survivor (who was hospitalized for a long time) healed enough to be recognizable, the mistake was discovered. Needless to say, the family who thought they had lost their son was relieved, and the family who thought it was their son in the hospital...well, I cannot even imagine.

I lived in a fairly small city at the time, and the entire place was just horrified at what happened.

[seabeyond]

8. i know i wouldnt be complainging about a lost damn 90 minutes i would never get back

well, i will say, glad he is alive, but another ones kids isnt.

sad story

[nilram]

14. 90 minutes that she won't get back, versus a son that she did?

Yeah, I wouldn't complain, either.

I bet that's a kid that doesn't drink and drive, if he takes to heart his family's reactions.

[Incitatus]

15. honest mistake. Why was the other guy carrying his license?