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Providence St. Vincent Medical Center is being sued for $3 million by the parents of a baby boy who died, and whose body was misidentified for five months.

The parents of a premature baby boy who died after five days have filed a $3 million lawsuit against St. Vincent Medical Center, a funeral home and a mortuary service, claiming employees misidentified and cremated the remains of the wrong baby.

Norma Arellano and Sergio Maldonado received the ashes of a baby girl instead, according to a lawsuit filed last week in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

They held funeral services with those ashes, traveled with the ashes to see family and displayed the urn in a religious shrine, according to one of their attorneys. The parents learned of the mistake five months later from the funeral home and suspect a cover-up by the hospital.

"It's been a devastating experience for both of them," said Portland attorney John O'Hara, who is representing the parents along with Portland attorney George McCoy. "They're both strong family people. They didn't have the baby very long, but they became very close to him. ... The whole thing was just a total shock."

Providence St. Vincent Medical Center's chief executive apologized in a statement emailed Monday to The Oregonian/OregonLive. She said the hospital has made "immediate changes" to avoid such an error from happening again.

Hospital statement

"All of us at Providence are deeply sorry for what happened, and we regret the emotional and spiritual pain and distress we have caused this family. We strive to care for each person we serve with compassion and excellence. It saddens us if an error is made, and compels us to learn and work even harder to ensure it doesn't happen again. People trust us when they come to us for care. Incidents such as this one break that sacred trust. We have made immediate changes to our processes. We want to restore that trust."

Janice Burger

Chief Executive

Providence St. Vincent Medical Center

"All of us at Providence are deeply sorry for what happened, and we regret the emotional and spiritual pain and distress we have caused this family," chief executive Janice Burger said.

The other two defendants listed in the lawsuit -- Gable Funeral Chapel and First Call Plus of Oregon Mortuary Services -- declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

According to the lawsuit:

Arellano and Maldonado's baby, Elijah Maldonado, was born on Jan. 17, 2015. He died five days later because of internal hemorrhaging due to his premature birth.

Two days later, a representative from Gable Funeral Chapel arrived at the hospital to pick up the body, tagged with"Baby Boy Arellano" and a number.

Both a St. Vincent employee and a Gable Funeral employee signed an information sheet confirming the release and pick-up of the boy's body, but the wrong identification number was listed on the transfer form, the suit states. The identification number belonged to a baby girl who had died three months earlier.

The Gable Funeral employee transported the body of the baby girl to the funeral home on Northeast 80th Avenue in Portland, according to the suit.

***

The suit faults St. Vincent's and the Gable Funeral Chapel for allegedly not checking the numbers on the tags and for not recognizing that the body they thought was Elijah's was far too decomposed for a baby who had died two days earlier.

The suit states that all of the employees who viewed the body "should have immediately identified the fact that the remains were those of a body which had decayed for a significantly longer period of time even if they failed to observe the body was female."

The boy's parents went to the funeral chapel, where an employee told them that their son's body had decayed rapidly and they didn't want to see him. According to the lawsuit, the representative told the couple to sign an "identification acknowledgment," and they did.

The baby girl's body was then brought to First Call Plus of Oregon Mortuary Services in Northeast Portland, where an employee there cremated the body.

Elijah's parents created a shrine in their Portland home, where they kept the urn on display next to candles and a prayer book, O'Hara said.

Five months later, the funeral home's director met with them to tell them the cremated remains that they thought were their son's actually belonged to a girl, according to the suit.

"He informed them St. Vincent's was aware Elijah Maldonado had been wrongly identified, and St. Vincent's had deliberately chosen not to contact (them) with this information," the suit states.

Arellano and Maldonado contacted the hospital and discovered that their son's body was still there. They viewed their son's body because they didn't want another misidentification to be made, O'Hara said.

The boy was no longer recognizable because of significant degradation, but they identified a blanket the boy had been wrapped in at the time of his death, the suit says.

Arellano and Maldonado returned the ashes of the baby girl, O'Hara said.

***

In an unusual statement of facts, a hospital spokesman sent out an email responding to many of the allegations in the lawsuit.

"While we do not ordinarily discuss pending legal action, we do think it is important to clarify some important issues raised in the filing," said hospital spokesman Gary Walker.

The hospital didn't try to cover up the mistake, Walker said. It learned of the error on June 23, 2015, and contacted the funeral home to try to learn more. The funeral home independently called the parents, Walker said, before the hospital did.

The hospital intended to contact the parents all along -- and it did on June 26, 2015. It also met with the parents on June 29, 2015, Walker said.

The other baby wasn't alive when she was born, Walker said. The girl's grieving family asked that the hospital arrange for her burial and it was during the process of preparing the girl's body for transport, cremation and a remembrance service in June 2015 that the hospital discovered the mistake, he said.

Both infants had similar last names, Walker said, which was a big contributor to the mix-up.

The hospital scrutinized its processes and came up with some fixes, Walker said. Those include requiring a hospital employee to accompany funeral home or mortuary employees to the morgue.

"Together, they go through a series of checks and double checks to confirm the identity of the remains being transported," he said.

The lawsuit seeks $165 for the costs Arellano and Maldonado paid to have the wrong remains cremated. It also seeks up to $3 million in emotional distress.

Read the lawsuit here.

-- Aimee Green

503-294-5119