A Chattanooga man recently lost his firm-fitting dentures – and found to his dismay they had been buried along with his hospital roommate.
Chancellor Frank Brown on Tuesday afternoon signed an order allowing the body of Kenneth Ray Manis to be dug back up at the National Cemetery.
Mr. Manis died June 12 at Parkridge Medical Center.
Parkridge admitted it took the wrong dentures, leaving a pair that didn’t fit the roommate.
Parkridge will pay the cost of having the dentures dug up.
Officials noted that the dentures were not placed in the mouth of the deceased, but were put in a case that was deposited with other effects in the casket.
A “petition for disinterment and reburial” says after the death of Mr. Manis “one personal effect of Mr. Manis’s roommate at Parkridge was inadvertently transferred” to the deceased.
It “was then buried with Mr. Manis because no one at petitioner or Mr. Manis’s family knew it belonged to his roommate at Parkridge.
“The personal effect was a custom-fitted item that this roommate realized was missing after Mr. Manis’s burial on June 15.”
Parkridge will also pay the court costs.
The order authorizes bringing up of the casket and the reburial by Advantage Funeral and Crematory Service, Franklin-Strickland, Pinkard, Bryan and Smith Funeral Directors.
