An Oregon man who was certified dead and whose ashes his family believed they possessed reappeared on a FaceTime call, NBC News reported Wednesday.
Tyler John Chase, 22, of Portland, was certified dead from a drug overdose in a downtown Portland parking lot Sep. 10, 2023, by the Multnomah County Medical Examiner, according to NBC News . There was a cremation three weeks later, the Oregon Health Authority issued a death certificate and Chase’s family collected the ashes.
Latasha Rosales, Chase’s cousin, reportedly got a phone call from the medical examiner’s office Dec. 19 while preparing to go and watch a Christmas lights show. She thought there would be news of another family member’s death. Chase and his family had lost his mom in 2020 a few years before he was certified dead, leaving the family hard-hit, she told NBC News.
“[The medical examiner] said, ‘There’s been a mistake in his death. He’s not dead. He’s actually alive,'” Rosales told NBC News. She reportedly thought it was a prank until the medical examiner’s office connected Chase on a FaceTime call to Rosales.
“I just lost it. I can’t even tell you how I felt. It was just surreal. I cannot even explain it,” Rosales told NBC News.
Chase reportedly had been receiving treatment for drug use and had lost touch with family.
“The misidentification occurred because the deceased person was carrying Mr. Tyler Chase’s wallet and his official temporary Oregon driver’s license,” Multnomah County explained in a statement, according to the outlet. (RELATED: Funeral Home Put Wrong Body In Casket, Family Says)
Government-issued identity cards, fingerprint analysis and visual identification by loved ones, are three of the ways to identify the dead. Chase’s family, however, was unavailable to identify Chase before the cremation.
The medical examiner’s office did not publicly identify the deceased person whose ashes Chase’s family had, saying the person’s family requested privacy.
“Going forward, all individuals who are found with a temporary state-issued identification must also have fingerprints submitted for positive identification, to ensure that this will never happen again,” the medical examiner’s office said following a comprehensive review, according to NBC.
“It’s so hard to believe how something like this could even happen. Like — it just makes no sense to me,” Rosales told NBC News.