3dGameMan
09-19-2005, 06:56 AM
Last goodbye lost after toddler girl wrongly cremated: ~source (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3358475)
By AVIS THOMAS-LESTER
Washington Post
WASHINGTON - They had planned to bury 20-month-old Akilah Austin on Saturday in a white-and-pink princess dress inside a tiny white coffin with pink ribbons.
The whole family would have been there: her parents, Lisa and Marvin Austin, who had spent countless hours by her hospital bed since she took ill with a genetic heart defect in January. Her aunts, uncles, grandmother and family friends wanted to be there, just as they had been when she was implanted with an artificial Berlin heart, then later with a donor heart.
Luca Vricella and other members of the Johns Hopkins Children's Center's cardiac intensive-care staff had planned to go, to say goodbye to the baby who survived two heart surgeries only to die of pneumonia.
But the funeral plans were dashed after Akilah's parents arrived Friday at the Fleck Funeral Home in Laurel, Md., — with pink hair bows and nail polish for their daughter — and were told their baby had been cremated, relatives said.
"We just couldn't believe it," said Lucille Czechanski, Akilah's aunt, speaking on the parents' behalf. "After everything that Lisa and Marvin have gone through, then to have this happen. ... Lisa and Marvin have lost the chance to say goodbye to their baby."
The parents were in seclusion Friday.
Christopher Downey, marketing director for the funeral home, did not answer questions about the incident or confirm that the baby was mistakenly cremated...
By AVIS THOMAS-LESTER
Washington Post
WASHINGTON - They had planned to bury 20-month-old Akilah Austin on Saturday in a white-and-pink princess dress inside a tiny white coffin with pink ribbons.
The whole family would have been there: her parents, Lisa and Marvin Austin, who had spent countless hours by her hospital bed since she took ill with a genetic heart defect in January. Her aunts, uncles, grandmother and family friends wanted to be there, just as they had been when she was implanted with an artificial Berlin heart, then later with a donor heart.
Luca Vricella and other members of the Johns Hopkins Children's Center's cardiac intensive-care staff had planned to go, to say goodbye to the baby who survived two heart surgeries only to die of pneumonia.
But the funeral plans were dashed after Akilah's parents arrived Friday at the Fleck Funeral Home in Laurel, Md., — with pink hair bows and nail polish for their daughter — and were told their baby had been cremated, relatives said.
"We just couldn't believe it," said Lucille Czechanski, Akilah's aunt, speaking on the parents' behalf. "After everything that Lisa and Marvin have gone through, then to have this happen. ... Lisa and Marvin have lost the chance to say goodbye to their baby."
The parents were in seclusion Friday.
Christopher Downey, marketing director for the funeral home, did not answer questions about the incident or confirm that the baby was mistakenly cremated...