A Nebraska woman who was pronounced dead at a nursing home on Monday was discovered breathing hours later by a funeral home employee, the authorities said.
The woman, Constance Glantz, 74, of Lincoln, Neb., was brought to a hospital and declared alive, Chief Deputy Ben Houchin of the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office said at a news conference on Monday. Ms. Glantz died hours after the error was discovered, he told reporters on Tuesday.
“At this point we have not been able to find any criminal intent by the nursing home, but the investigation is ongoing,” he said on Monday.
Ms. Glantz was receiving hospice care when she was pronounced dead at 9:44 a.m. by the nursing home staff at the Mulberry at Waverly in Waverly, Neb., Chief Deputy Houchin said. An investigation by the sheriff’s coroner was not necessary at the time of death, he said.
The funeral home, which the local news media has reported is Butherus-Maser & Love Funeral Home in Lincoln, transported someone “they believed was a deceased individual” from the nursing home, Chief Deputy Houchin said. But an employee who began preparing Ms. Glantz’s body noticed she was still breathing. Two hours after she was declared dead, the staff called 911, he said.
Staff members were performing CPR on Ms. Glantz when emergency medical workers with Lincoln Fire and Rescue arrived, M.J. Lierman, an agency spokeswoman, said.
They treated Ms. Glantz at the scene and transported her to a hospital, Ms. Lierman said. She died around 4 p.m. Monday, Chief Deputy Houchin said. The cause of death was not released; an autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday morning, Chief Deputy Houchin said.
Ms. Glantz’s family was notified, officials said. The authorities did not provide any additional details about Ms. Glantz, including how long she’d been in hospice or whether she had any medical conditions.
Investigators were looking into whether any laws were broken, but so far “we have not been able to determine anything,” Chief Deputy Houchin said on Monday.
Calls to the nursing home were not answered on Monday night.
“This is a very unusual case,” Chief Deputy Houchin said. “I’ve been doing this 31 years, and nothing like this has ever gotten to this point before.”
While rare, there have been cases of people who were declared dead only to be found alive soon after.
In 2023, a woman in Iowa was taken in a body bag to a funeral home, where workers discovered that her chest was moving as she gasped for air.
In 2020, a woman in Michigan with cerebral palsy was declared dead by paramedics but was discovered to be breathing hours later by a funeral home worker who was preparing to embalm her body.
In 2018, a South African woman was pronounced dead at the scene of a car wreck but hours later was found breathing in a mortuary. And in 2014, a Mississippi man who had been pronounced dead was found alive inside a body bag at a funeral home.
Jesus Jiménez contributed reporting.
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