Widow sues funeral home, crematorium after receiving stranger's ashes

SALT LAKE CITY — Marilynn Flynn opened the urn containing her husband's ashes for the first time while preparing for a memorial service marking one year since his death. Flynn intended to spread some of his remains in the Sacramento Mountains near her home in Alamogordo, N.M. But what she says she saw inside the urn stunned her: a dental bridge fragment, a dental crown and three porcelain fragments — none of which belonged to her husband. "She feels devastated. She feels she let her husband down because she didn't secure his remains," said John Wheeler, an Alamogordo attorney representing Flynn in a federal lawsuit. The suit filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City alleges McDougal Funeral Homes and Independent Professional Services were negligent in handling the remains of Michael Wayne Flynn. It contends the ashes given to Marilynn Flynn could not have been those of her husband. Mike Flynn, 59, and two other men died April 25, 2009, when the airplane he was co-piloting crashed in the Oquirrh Mountains in Tooele County. The men were traveling from Missoula, Mont., to southern New Mexico to fight a wildfire. Marilynn Flynn positively identified her husband's remains shortly before they were cremated, Wheeler said. After discovering the dental fragments, she questioned whether the remains were her husband's. "Mr. Flynn never had that type of dental work done," Wheeler said. Marilynn Flynn took the fragments to a forensic dentist who determined they did not come from her husband. She also consulted with the widow of the pilot and found he had not had that kind of dental work done either, he said. Flynn intended to combine and inter her husband's ashes with her own after she dies. The purpose of the lawsuit is to locate Mike Flynn's remains and to find out "where the system broke down" so it doesn't happen again, Wheeler said. The crematory at Independent Professional Services is cleaned with a fine-bristle brush before each body goes in, and workers go over the remains with magnets to remove any metals before placing them into a heavy plastic bag, says owner Gerald Newlon. McDougal Funeral Homes, 4330 S. Redwood Road, took custody of the body from the state medical examiner's office and arranged with nearby Independent Professional Services for the cremation. Gerald Newlon, owner of Independent Professional Services, said Mike Flynn's body arrived in a "disaster pouch," which he said is typical of crash victims. An identification tag is attached, he said. Bodies are cremated one at a time. "We don't really know what we get in the disaster pouches," Newlon said. "In a case like this, everything we get goes into the crematory." The crematory is cleaned with a fine-bristle brush before each body goes in, he said. Workers go over the remains with magnets to remove any metals before placing them into a heavy plastic bag. Newlon said his company's patron contract advises them of the possibility of foreign objects. A woman who answered the phone at McDougal on Tuesday declined to comment. 25 April 2012 http://www.ksl.com/?nid=960&sid=20135237

Identifying bodies a dilemma again

ISLAMABAD: Local administration is once again facing the dilemma of identifying air crash victims as it had faced after the Airblue crash in the Margallas in July 2010. Relatives have collected the bodies of 118 of the 127 persons who perished in Friday’s Bhoja Air crash but nine remain unclaimed. What makes the identification task difficult is that the remains of the victims fill 45 boxes. Frankly, most of the bodies were badly mutilated in the unfortunate crash. It were mostly body parts that we collected from the crash site. Only a few were intact,” a senior health officer told Dawn. Asked how they handed over the bodies to the heirs, he said: “Nadra helped us a lot and it was through finger marking and visual recognition.” When a similar question was raised by this reporter with the deputy commissioner of Islamabad, Amir Ali Ahmed, he said visual recognition by heirs was the key method also mentioned in the law and followed globally.” The second is DNA testing which takes a week or so. “We can’t say no to the heirs if they claim that a body belongs to them because visual recognition is the key to any claim,” he added. When told that some 45 coffins still remained with the local administration, Ahmed said: “Those 45 boxes are a symbol of respect given by my administration to the body parts of the victims. As Muslims, we respect every part of the body and keep them in separate coffin boxes.” He said the body parts would remain at the cold storage till the final DNA test reports were available after which it would be handed over to the heirs. “Once we receive a scientific report, we will hand over the bodies to the heirs.” Asked what he would do if several boxes still remained in their custody, he said: “We will bury them as per the defined Islamic rules and principles separately.” The DC said after the Airblue crash, they had faced a similar situation when they were left with some 20 coffins. But they followed the standard procedures. Meanwhile, Ahmed said the PC-I for establishment of a new mortuary was being prepared by the ICT administration and in this regard the help of Pims management had also been sought. It may be noted that the outpatient department (OPD) of Pims remained closed after the bodies of the air crash victims were kept in the hall. The executive director of the hospital, Prof Mahmood Jamal, said the OPD had now been opened. However, the DC said nowhere in the country a mortuary was managed by the district management; instead it was under the administrative control of hospitals. “However, to ease the load of Pims we have decided to go for an independent mortuary since we have to take a cold storage on rent during disasters.” 24 April 2012 http://dawn.com/2012/04/24/identifying-bodies-a-dilemma-again-2-fm/