Florence, body exchanged at the Careggi morgue and cremated by mistake

The body of the father, who died at the age of 87 last Thursday, was exchanged at the Careggi morgue with that of a woman, and cremated. An error learned by the family shortly before the funeral was celebrated, when relatives and friends had already arrived at the church. The incident happened in Florence according to what La Nazione reports today. Bernardo Bonazzi, the 87-year-old's son, the newspaper reports, received a phone call ten minutes before the funeral in the church of San Francesco and Santa Chiara in Montughi: "Come urgently to our offices, we have to tell you something important". He therefore went to the Military Brotherhood, in Piazza Santa Maria Novella, where he discovered that the body of his father Leonardo had been exchanged with that of the woman the day before in the morgue. "They told me that my father had been cremated by mistake, I didn't want to believe it - his words -. At that point the Military Brotherhood called the municipality's cemetery services to understand what had happened and then my cousin notified the police".

The family is considering legal appeals

Between phone calls and checks, the family began to reconstruct what happened: according to the relatives, no one had fully verified that the body in the coffin was the right one. The 87-year-old's body thus ended up in the path intended for the woman, and was cremated. The urn with the ashes, which still bears the name of the woman who however is still waiting to be cremated, is now kept in the Crematorium Temple of Trespiano. The family, reports La Nazione, has decided to contact a lawyer and does not rule out criminal and civil consequences. "They didn't give me the opportunity to see my father for the last time, to give him a final farewell, to celebrate a memorial mass in his memory" said the son, who was also sorry "for the woman's family, who finds themselves with my father's ashes". The family also discovered that the elderly man's death certificate had the wrong date of death. "I hope that Palazzo Vecchio - concludes the son - carries out all the checks and sanctions those who have done their job badly. Instead, I thank the Military Brotherhood for its closeness and assistance".