Main: Aurora Hartley discusses the shock of retrieving her stillborn child’s birthing blanket only to find the remains of a child still in the blanket. Inset: The birthing blanket and hospital bracelet for Hadley Hartley is show. (Screengrabs via KWTV)
An Oklahoma woman is taking legal action against a local funeral home after she says the retrieval of her stillborn baby’s remains went horribly wrong.
Aurora Hartley said she was excited to become a mother, but that she was devastated when she went into preterm labor at 27 weeks in November of 2023. Hartley delivered a stillborn child, Hadley, and after the birth, turned Hadley’s body over to the Medical Examiner’s office in Oklahoma City so that an autopsy could be performed.
According to Hartley’s lawyers, Hadley’s body was then sent by the Medical Examiner’s office to Alpha and Omega Mortuary to be cremated. Hartley then picked up what she thought were Hadley’s cremated remains and hospital birthing blanket at Brown’s Funeral Service in Coalgate, Oklahoma.
According to John Zelbst, Hartley’s attorney, his client opened the birthing blanket and found the remains of the child, Oklahoma City CBS affiliate KWTV reported.
“You can only imagine the shock and disgust,” the lawyer told local news.
