{"id":269,"date":"2020-10-29T16:52:49","date_gmt":"2020-10-29T16:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/dothan\/?p=269"},"modified":"2022-10-27T19:52:58","modified_gmt":"2022-10-27T19:52:58","slug":"bodies-misidentified-after-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/dothan\/bodies-misidentified-after-crash\/","title":{"rendered":"Families sue after Florida teens\u2019 bodies were misidentified and swapped after fatal summer car crash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The remains of two Florida teenagers were misidentified in a disturbing mix-up that was only caught after organs had already been removed from the wrong body, according to a new lawsuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both 15-year-old Samara Cooks and 18-year-old Deleigha Gibson were in a vehicle with two of their best friends on July 28 when it spun out of control in the early hours of the morning and struck a utility pole outside Pensacola.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The driver, 20-year-old Daichunique Lavender and another passenger, Alexandria Banks, were critically injured but survived the brutal wreck. Both Samara and Deleigha however were pronounced dead on the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooks\u2019 mother, Rananda, said she was already struggling to grieve the loss when she learned her daughter\u2019s body has been swapped with her friend\u2019s. She only found out after she requested to see Samara ahead of her wake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when I noticed that it was not Samara and it was a mix-up,\u201d she told CBS News<\/a>. \"I was thinking, \u2018Well maybe there\u2019s a chance that she\u2019s still alive.'\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deleigha\u2019s parents also learned about the horrific switch while at a funeral home \u2013 but only after staff there allegedly tried to switch the bodies back without anyone knowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her father, Demetrius, described the moment as \u201cjust heart-dropping.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both families on Thursday filed sued the Florida Highway Patrol, the Escambia County coroner and medical examiner as well as the funeral homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is a lack of candor and dignity involved with the public entities that we are suing,\u201d the Cooks\u2019 attorney, Artie Shimek, said during a Friday news conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey callously disregarded the rights, would not cooperate, would not tell these families anything during a time of unimaginable grief. A time that should be sacred.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attorney John Givens told CBS the families\u2019 lawsuits allege Florida Highway Patrol officers \u201cincorrectly tagged the victims at the crash site.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It additionally accused Escambia County\u2019s former medical examiner of failing to \u201cenforce appropriate policies and procedures, which resulted in the medical examiner\u2019s office extracting \u201cseveral organs from the body of Samara Cooks, who was not an organ donor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the indicator on her driver\u2019s license, Deleigha\u2019s organs were not harvested following her death, Givens noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both families said they were initially told it was against policy to allow families to view the bodies of their loved ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their suits, Samara\u2019s mother said she suffered from nightmares, anxiety and loss of appetite while Gibson\u2019s mother said the incident caused her metal deterioration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In statement to the CBS, authorities blamed the mix-up on the chaotic crash scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDue to the nature of this crash involving multiple ejections, positive identification at the scene were not made,\u201d police said, adding that they continue to further review the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The remains of two Florida teenagers were misidentified in a disturbing mix-up that was only caught after organs had already been removed from the wrong body, according to a new lawsuit. Both 15-year-old Samara Cooks and 18-year-old Deleigha Gibson were in a vehicle with two of their best friends on July 28 when it spun […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Families Sue After FL Teens' Bodies Misidentified & Swapped","_seopress_titles_desc":"The remains of two Florida teenagers were misidentified in a disturbing mix-up.","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/dothan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/dothan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/dothan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/dothan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/dothan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/dothan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/dothan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/dothan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/dothan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/dothan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}