Sep 3, 2006
A tragic mix-up of identities
From hope to despair, the families of Whitney Cerak and Laura VanRyn lived through a gamut of emotions when the girl thought of as alive was in fact dead
FOR five weeks, an American family recorded the progress of their daughter's recovery from a horrific traffic accident on a blog.
On lauravanryn.blogspot.com, the VanRyns of Caledonia, Michigan, spoke about how Laura VanRyn was waking up from a coma as she made small steps towards recovery.
On May 5, a week after the April 26 accident, the blog reported: 'The colour in her face continues to improve.'
On May 16, the VanRyns wrote that Laura 'started talking to us last night! She's said 'hi' several times and repeated the phrase 'good morning' back to Mom this morning'.
When the student finally woke up from her coma and her family should have been overjoyed, the nightmare started.
Laura was not Laura, but in fact fellow student Whitney Cerak, who had been injured in the same accident.
In a tragic mix-up, 22-year-old Laura, who died, was thought to have lived, and Whitney, then 18, who lived, was thought to have died and was buried.
It was the real Laura's boyfriend who first questioned her identity as he thought the girl lying in the hospital bed was behaving oddly. Laura's father also became suspicious when she referred to him by a pet name he didn't recognise.
On May 29, the VanRyns knew for sure that something was not right. They reported in the blog: 'While certain things seem to be coming back to her, she still has times where she'll say things that don't make much sense.'
When Laura was finally asked for her name, she wrote 'Whitney Cerak'. The case of mistaken identity then came to light.
The Ceraks, of Gaylord, Michigan, were told that their daughter was in fact alive.
The case made the news here last week when Whitney finally recovered enough from her injuries to return to school.
The amazing story began on April 26, when a van that Laura and Whitney were travelling in collided with a tractor-trailer on a highway in Indiana.
The two were in a group of nine from Indiana's Taylor University and on their way to their campus. Four students and a university employee were killed after the trailer driver, who apparently fell asleep at the wheel, lost control of his vehicle.
The accident scene was horrific - there was lots of blood and glass, and purses and personal belongings were strewn about, said newspaper reports.
By the time Indiana's Grant County Coroner Ron Mowery arrived, the identity mix-up was already on course.
Taylor students reportedly identified Whitney as Laura, no doubt because both girls were blonde and of the same size.
She was airlifted by helicopter to a hospital with Laura's photo ID, the Indianapolis Star reported.
The body thought to be Whitney, in the meantime, was taken to a hospital morgue after the emergency and Taylor staff identified her as that. Whitney's sister Carley met the coroner's staff at the hospital, but never viewed the remains.
Sadly, there were no finger-printing or dental records checks on the victims.
On April 30, when 1,400 people turned up for what they thought was Whitney's funeral, no one saw the body as the coffin was closed. The girl's mother also buried the body without seeing it, as she wanted to remember her daughter as she was, said Whitney's grandfather Emil Frank.
Meanwhile, the VanRyns kept vigil at the rehabilitation centre by Whitney's bedside, believing she was their daughter.
The misidentification was compounded by Whitney's extensive facial swelling, broken bones and cuts and bruises. She was also swaddled in bandages.
When it finally dawned on the VanRyns that the girl was not their daughter, they alerted the hospital. A forensic dental examination was performed, which finally sorted out the mix-up.
On May 31, the VanRyns disclosed the mix-up on their blog. They wrote: 'Our hearts are aching as we have learned that the young woman we have been taking care of over the past five weeks has not been our dear Laura.'
They said the two shared an 'uncanny' resemblance: 'Their body types are similar, their hair colour and texture, their facial features, etc.'
Over at the Cerak household, there was shock, but also joy. 'I still can't get over it. It's like a fairy tale,' grandfather Frank said.
Last month, Whitney - who is still receiving therapy for her injuries - wrote on her family's blog, whitneycerak.blogspot.com (left), that she could not recall much about the five weeks after the crash.
'Some people came to visit me at the hospital, and a few of those were the VanRyns,' she wrote. 'I know they were with me constantly during the first five weeks, but their visit was all I can remember.'
But the girl who came back from the dead wrote at the end of the posting: 'I am finally home.'
# The lauravanryn blog, meanwhile, can no longer be found on the Internet.
abit.. funny.