Family Nurses Daughter Back to Discover She's Not Their Daughter

File it under too tragic to even be a Hollywood screen play, a couple nursed their child back from life threatening injuries after an accident, find out that she is not their daughter. Per the STL Post/AP:

A couple sat by their daughter's hospital bedside for weeks after an auto accident until she came out of a coma. Soon, they realized that she was not their daughter but rather another young, blond woman injured in the wreck. Their own daughter, it turned out, was dead and buried. One family had been incorrectly told their daughter had died in the crash April 26 in Indiana; another was erroneously informed that their daughter was in a coma..................

Can you imagine the pain and absolute extreme emotion that both of these families have gone through the past few weeks.........................

The girls looked very similar and due to injuries and swelling of their faces, the missed identification occurred. Here is the university website Taylor University............

Laura Vanryn's family also created a blog that updated what they thought was their daughters recovery: Laura Vanryn Blogspot. Here is the post where they reveal that the child they were nursing back to health was in fact not their loved one:

Our hearts are aching as we have learned that the young woman we have been taking care of over the past five weeks has not been our dear Laura, but instead a fellow Taylor student of hers, Whitney Cerak. There was a misidentification made at the time of the accident and it is uncanny the resemblence that these two women share. Their body types are similar, their hair color and texture, their facial features, etc. Over the past couple of days, as Whitney had been becoming more aware of her surroundings, she'd been saying and doing some things that made us question whether or not she was Laura. Yesterday, we talked with a Spectrum staff member and began the process of making a positive ID. We now know without a doubt, that this is Whitney.............

The sister of Whitney posted this Carly Cerak on the blog:

I couldn't get this verse out of my head as we drove down to Grand Rapids. I did not believe my sister was in the hospital; I thought for sure this was a mistake. When I walked into the hospital room I was shocked and overcome with joy. Soon after we saw Whitney, our family met with the Van Ryns and our joy for ourselves was pushed aside by the pain we felt for them. It is hard because our joy is their pain. The Van Ryns have been amazing to Whitney and we are privileged that if under any care besides ours that she was under their great care. However, we know the pain they now feel all too well and our hearts break with them. There is a deep connection that has been made between our families and together we look to God as we walk through this.........

Man, what a tough deal for everyone, but especially the VanRyn's. Got to keep them in your prayers............................................

---------------------Update----------------------------------

New revelations on the unfortunate factors that lead to this tragic mistake that made a horrible situation, even worse, per the AP:

Authorities missed one opportunity after another to avoid - or at least correct sooner - the sad mix-up between a student killed in a van crash and a classmate who survived. Among other things, a sister of one of the victims asked to see the body but was talked out of it by a deputy coroner who said it would be too traumatic. A boyfriend and a college roommate also raised doubts about whether the women had been accurately identified, but the mistake went undiscovered for five weeks...............

Had a deputy coroner not talked the sister of Whitney Cerak out of identifying the body, per officials, "the entire disaster may have been avoided".................

Obviously the deputy coroner had good intentions but it appears that those good intentions probably fueled this tragic mix-up:

Grant County Coroner Ron Mowery said the woman was "extremely traumatized" and could not stand without help after learning of her sister's death at a hospital in Marion, northeast of Indianapolis. The deputy coroner's advice was "out of concern for how she would handle the shock" of seeing her sister's body, Mowery said..........................

Again, a tragic situation that was made worse by a terrible error in identification.................................