Gauteng family distraught after funeral parlour mix-up

Members of the Thekiso family in Wattville, east of Johannesburg are still reeling in shock after a funeral parlour mistakenly cremated their mother a few weeks ago.

They went to B3 Funeral Parlour to collect the body of their loved one only to be told she had mistakenly been cremated.

The funeral parlour has admitted to the error and has offered to compensate the family.

Distraught relative, Bella Malaka says, “We were called to a boardroom and they told us they have cremated the wrong body. When we asked for more clarity on that, we were told somebody called and told the funeral parlour to cremate her. I was so sad and shattered and I did not know what to do. This affected me so much to an extent that I lost my mind. I don’t even know how I managed to get into the car coming back home.”

B3 Funeral Parlour executive head, Isaac Mamotsau has apologised.

He says after an internal investigation they discovered the tags used to identify the deceased were mixed up by the morticians.

“Our investigations revealed that the greatest mistake, an error. We apologise for what occurred. When we removed the bodies from the cold rooms for the preparations, the tags on the body were actually removed. The bodies went for the preparations and the tags remained in the cold rooms and when we returned the bodies to the cold rooms the tags were mixed up. The tag that was meant for body cremation was placed on a body that was not meant to be cremated.”