CARMICHAEL, Calif. — A family spent a year searching for their daughter only to find out she was dead the whole time. They are now suing Mercy San Juan Medical Center for negligence alleging they were never notified of her death.
Ginger Congi is now forced to talk about her 31-year-old daughter Jessie Peterson in the past tense.
“She loved us all she was the kind of kid that would give you the last Jelly Belly out of her pocket, even though it was full of fuzz," Congi said.
The family has a small bit of closure after Peterson had been missing for the last year.
“People walking on the side of the street and slow down to see if it was her, anybody that matched her stature or her color of hair. We went, we went looking for (her), we put posters up,” Congi said.
Congi said she last spoke to her daughter in the beginning of April 2023 when she was at Mercy San Juan Medical Center to be treated for her diabetes.
Congi said the hospital told her Peterson was discharged.
A year later, after filing the missing persons report, a Sacramento County Sheriff’s detective told Congi that Peterson was dead. She in fact had died at Mercy San Juan and had been in cold storage in the morgue the entire time.
The death certificate said Peterson died on April 8, 2023. but the certificate wasn’t issued until April 5, 2024. A hospital release form of the body also said the date of death was April 8, 2023.
“Well, our hearts are broken. It's pretty hard for as a parent to think about your child living or not living, being in a freezer someplace, all by herself, the fact that she died all by herself, tucked away someplace that nobody cared,” Congi said.
Peterson's family is now suing Mercy San Juan for negligence. They're being represented by Marc Greenberg, who is also working on a similar case in Southern California.
“You have a hospital called Dignity Health and there was no dignity to Jessie or the family. The obligation of the doctor and hospital is to issue the death certificate within 15 hours of a death, in this case we have a death certificate that was issued a year, a year after the death,” Greenberg said.
Dignity Health released the following statement to ABC10: "We extend our deepest sympathies to the family during this difficult time. We are unable to comment on pending litigation."
The family said those condolences were never expressed to them. They are requesting a jury trial and $5 million in damages.
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