MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - A woman has filed a lawsuit accusing Springhill Medical Center of mistreating her mother's body after her death last year.
Toilicia Williams said she was still mourning the death of her mother, Charlene Williams, when she got a call from Small's Mortuary.
"They just said, 'We need you to get down here. We need to talk to you,'" the Mobile woman said.
Williams said when she arrived at the funeral home in December 2023, she got a shock. Funeral home employees told her and showed her the condition of her mother's body. It was badly decomposed, with extreme bloating. Her attorney, Roger Varner, provided FOX10 News with graphic photographs.
"I cried," Williams said. "It was ... me and my two other brothers. We fell down to the floor. It was just devastating to see her like that."
Williams said her 58-year-old mother had health problems and went into the hospital after experiencing shortness of breath. She died from cardiac arrest about 12 hours later.
The lawsuit does not accuse the hospital of wrongdoing related to the death. But the suit, which seeks unspecified damages, alleges that the hospital "negligently and/or wantonly stored the body."
A spokeswoman Springhill Medical Center said the hospital doesn't comment on pending litigation. It has 30 days to answer the civil complaint.
Varner said Springhill Medical Center does not have a morgue and instead puts bodies in a cooling room.
"We don't know if it was not put in the cooling room, or if the cooling was malfunctioning, but we do know that ... Miss Williams' body showed advanced decaying, well beyond what should have occurred," he said.
The lawsuit alleges that the family was unable to have an open-casket funeral.
"Just levels of decomposition that made it impossible for my client to send a mother off the right way," Varner said.