A family says they spent nearly a year looking for a missing 31-year-old woman in California before finding her remains at a hospital cold storage facility, NBC News reports.
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The family of Jessie Peterson, 31, recently filed a lawsuit against Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael, California, alleging that they were never notified of her death at the Sacramento-area hospital.
Peterson, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 10, checked herself into Mercy San Juan on April 6, 2023, following a diabetic episode. She was pronounced dead two days later, and her body was taken to the cold storage facility unknowingly to the family, the lawsuit states.
Hours before her death, Peterson allegedly called her mother, Ginger Congi, asking to be picked up from the hospital, the lawsuit states. Congi wasn’t able to reach her daughter again so she contacted the hospital staff, who told her that Peterson checked herself out against medical advice, the suit alleges.
Days passed with no sign of Peterson. The family began a widespread search for Peterson and reported her missing.
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According to the lawsuit, the family had no signs of Peterson’s whereabouts until a doctor filed her death certificate 361 days late. This triggered an alert at the Sheriff’s Office due to a California law that states death certificates must be filed within 15 hours of a death.
On April 12, 2024, the sheriff’s office informed Peterson’s family of her death. The hospital cited her cause of death as cardiopulmonary arrest, but Peterson’s body was too decomposed to confirm via autopsy, according to the lawsuit.
Peterson’s family later discovered her body had been stored in an off-site facility for the past year.
Family attorney Marc R. Greenberg also alleged there were mistakes in Peterson’s medical records. The records allegedly state that a chest X-ray was performed on Peterson on May 31, 2023, more than a month after she died.
“She was dead and in cold storage by then, so what did [they] compare it to?” Greenberg said.
The family is seeking $25 million, alleging negligence by the hospital.
