Grandma’s Corpse Ends Up Almost Dissected, Family Gets $115,000 Settlement

The corpse of 85-year-old Aura Ballesteros almost ended up being dissected after it was sent to a medical school. Aura had been battling dementia and heart disease for several years, and on May 16, 2014, she died at a nursing home where she was staying. Aura’s three children were told by the medical examiner’s office that they would take care of her corpse until June 16 while they settled funeral arrangements for the grandma.

However, Aura’s three children were surprised to find out that the corpse of their mother had been shipped to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx and almost ended up being dissected by students for research, according to Time.

According to state law, a corpse that has not been claimed after 14 days can be donated to a medical school. Although the medical examiner’s office told Aura’s children that they are willing to take care of the corpse until they finish all funeral arrangements, a clerk was not notified of the situation and complied with the rules to ship the corpse to a medical school on June 3.

Aura’s son, Hector, learned about the news when his mother’s corpse was already embalmed. He testified in court and said that his mother’s face was almost unrecognizable. The New York Daily News has snippets of the court transcript.

“The lips were closed stitches… there was a very wide incision on her neck… the nose, I don’t know exactly what happened with the nose because she had a nose that was big up front, but now it was like small, and open holes to breathe were wide open.

“The body itself inflated on the left side, the right side was like empty like all the organs were moved to the left side.”

New York City paid a settlement fee of $115,000 to the family of Aura Ballesteros for the incident.

To prevent an incident like this from happening again, a new state law, which is pending, will require the consent of the deceased family before the body can be sent to a medical school.

[Photo by John Moore/Getty Images]