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Vancouver hospital asked wrong family whether to pull the plug on patient

In a terrible case of mistaken identity, KGW found PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver allowed a family to pull the plug on the wrong man.

Kyle Iboshi (KGW)

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Published: 7:22 PM EST February 21, 2024
Updated: 9:21 PM EST February 21, 2024

The family of a Vancouver man faced a heavy decision after an unexpected phone call in the middle of the night. Their loved one was on life support, hospital staff told them, after a horrible choking incident.

“They said, 'He’s basically brain dead,'” explained Debbie Danielson. “'Do you want us to keep him on life support or do you want to pull the plug?'”

After a brief discussion with her husband, Danielson told the hospital to pull her 60-year-old brother off life support.

“Michael A. Beehler, 60, Vancouver, died August 9, 2021,” read a death notice posted in The Columbian newspaper.

“That whole week was kind of a blur. Trying to come up with funeral arrangements, letting family members know that he passed away,” explained Danielson.

Then came the phone call no one expected. It was her brother, Mike. He wasn’t dead. Instead, he was very much alive.

“I said, ‘You can’t be alive. You’re dead!'” explained Danielson.

In a terrible case of mistaken identity that has never been publicly disclosed, KGW found PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver allowed a family to pull the plug on the wrong man.

“We made life-ending decisions for a person we don’t even know,” said Danielson’s husband, Gary.

Credit: KGW
Gary and Debbie Danielson of Vancouver.

The medical mix-up started with a 911 call on August 8, 2021. Medics responded to an apartment in Vancouver. Mike Beehler said his roommate choked on a piece of steak at dinner. The man was not breathing and unconscious, according to an emergency dispatch log.

“He fell over a chair,” said Beehler. “I thought he was dead then.”

An ambulance transported the man to PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver. But, somewhere along the line, the roommate was misidentified, and the hospital incorrectly treated him as Mike Beehler.

“How do you misidentify somebody?” asked Danielson.

His family claims Beehler had previously been treated at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center and had medical files on record, which may help explain why the hospital knew to call his sister with dire news.

PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center called the county medical examiner’s office to report the death, then sent the misidentified body to the funeral home, according to emails from the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office obtained through a public records request.

The funeral home asked the wrong family about final wishes, cremation and organ donation.

“When we went to the funeral director, I was like, ‘Don’t we need to identify him?’ 'No, we’ll just take it from here,'” recounted Beehler’s brother-in-law, Gary Danielson. All County Cremation and Burial Services declined to comment.

It wasn’t until Beehler made that unexpected call to his sister a week later, concerned because his cell phone account had been shut down, that anyone realized the roommates had been switched at death.

“He’s dead and I’m supposed to be dead. Who knows what’s going on,” explained Beehler.

Credit: KGW
Michael Beehler of Vancouver.

On Saturday evening, August 14, 2021, Beehler’s family called police non-emergency to notify authorities about the mistake.

In an email to the medical examiner’s staff, a death investigator summarized the situation and explained how any errors couldn’t be corrected immediately due to the weekend and limited staffing.

“I am a little uncertain on how to proceed with this unfortunate mix-up,” wrote death investigator Michelle Rodrigue.

The Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office said it later retrieved the body from the funeral home, conducted an external examination and used fingerprints to confirm the person’s identity. Indeed, it wasn’t Beehler, the medical examiner found. It was his roommate who died.

A new death notice was published in the newspaper remembering the roommate. “David C. Wells, 69, Vancouver, died Aug. 9, 2021,” read the notice.

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