A Chicago woman has been left traumatised after taking her brother off life support, only to find out it wasn't him.
Essence reports that Rosie Brooks received a phone call from Mercy Hospital last month, telling her that her brother was near death.
"She was a social worker," she told CBS Chicago.
"She was looking for relatives of Alfonso Bennett, and I told her that was my brother. And she said, 'Well, he's here in ICU.'"
When she showed up to the hospital with her sister, Brenda Bennett-Johnson, Rosie could not identify the man as he had been badly beaten, especially in the face, and found naked and without identification weeks before.
"They kept saying CPD identified this person as our brother," Brenda said.
The sisters had been estranged from their brother for years. After giving consent, the man was taken off the ventilator and died a few hours later.
A few days later, as Brenda and Rosie were making funeral arrangements, they received a phone call from their sister, Yolanda, who informed them that the man who had died was not their brother Alfonso, as he had just arrived at her home.
"It's sad that it happened like that," Brenda says about the case of mistaken identity.
"If it was our brother and we had to go through that that would have been a different thing. We made all kinds of decisions on someone that wasn't our family."
Police say due to budget cuts, they used a mug shot - rather than finger prints - to identify John Doe.
They have now begun the process of tracking down the deceased man's family.
Sources: Essence, CBS Chicago, Mirror
