An elderly woman in Nebraska was initially declared dead at a nursing home but was later found breathing at a funeral home, according to police.
At a news conference on June 3, Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office (LSO) Chief Deputy Ben Houchin said 74-year-old Constance Glantz of Lincoln, Nebraska, was pronounced dead at 9:44 a.m. on Monday by staff at the nursing home where she’d been in hospice care.
However, about two hours after Ms. Glantz was presumed dead, dispatchers received a call for a “medical emergency” from the Lincoln funeral home she was transported to, Butherus-Maser & Love.
Mr. Houchin said a funeral home worker who was preparing her body notified the department at 11:43 a.m. after noticing Ms. Glantz was still alive.
“An employee was placing Constance Glantz onto a table to start their process, and an employee noticed that she was breathing,” Mr. Houchin said, adding the worker “instantly called 911.”
A spokesperson for Lincoln Fire & Rescue said during the news conference that emergency workers performed CPR on the patient before taking her to a local hospital, where she eventually died about five hours later.
Lancaster County Attorney Pat Condon has ordered an autopsy on Ms. Gantz’s body, Mr. Houchin said, noting results of the autopsy could take up to 12 weeks
“We at the sheriff’s office want to give our condolences to Constance’s friends and family,” he said.
No Criminal Charges
“This is a very unusual case,” Mr. Houchin said. “[I’ve] been doing this [for] 31 years, and nothing like this has ever gotten to this point before.”
The sheriff’s office has been to the nursing home to investigate the matter, but no criminal charges are pending, Mr. Houchin said.
“At this point, we have not been able to find any criminal intent by the nursing home but the investigation is ongoing,” he said.
He also revealed that the sheriff’s office was not dispatched to the nursing home when staff members believed Ms. Glantz had died due to the circumstances not falling into the parameters for them to be required to call local authorities for a coroner investigation.
“Those are ‘a death of a patient whose death is anticipated,’ which this was, and a physician had seen her in the last seven days, and the physician was willing to sign the death certificate, and that there was nothing suspicious at that time of the death,” he explained.
“All of those fit,” he added. “That’s the reason why LSO was not sent—initially—to the nursing home.”
When Mr. Houchin was answering questions from reporters, he also confirmed that “at least one nurse” had seen Ms. Glantz from her time of death to the funeral home.
“I do know, usually, they take two [nurses] to the transport, and I know there was at least one nurse at that time doing that. I don’t know how many people had done that part of it,” he said. “We’re still ongoing with the investigation and trying to determine what transpired in it.”
