An undertaker from Harmony Funeral Care had unintentionally collected the wrong body and sent it for cremation. The mix-up occurred as he could only identify the deceased based on the facial features, which were in this case similar to another deceased individual.
While it is not uncommon for the wrong body to be collected, it is rare that a wrong body is cremated. This is because the body of the deceased would usually be shown to the family members before being sent for cremation.
The case is believed to be the first of its kind in Singapore.
Miss Cheng (26-years old), a manager at “Harmony Funeral Care”, revealed that the wrongly collected body was sent for cremation on Monday (30th Dec) at 8.45am. Prior to the cremation, the family members did not request for the coffin to be opened for inspection, which was why nobody realised the mistake.
On Monday, Miss Cheng received a call from “Tan Khiam Soon Undertaker”, saying that they could not find the body of the deceased that they were supposed to handle. Miss Cheng immediately contacted her workers and even went down to the funeral parlor to investigate the matter.
Through investigations, she gathered that her worker had collected the wrong body from the morgue and sent it for cremation. The worker responsible for this screw up was a 23-year old who had only been working for 4 months.
The owner of Harmony Funeral Care as well as the 23-year old worker who caused the mix-up have apologised to the families for their mistake. They are currently in negotiations to offer all the assistance they can to both affected families.