NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- A Brooklyn woman says a hospital mix up caused her to send a complete stranger to his death.
Shirell Powell tells the New York Post that she spent nine days with a brain-damaged man who doctors said was her brother. It turned out to be a stranger with the same name, according to a lawsuit.
Powell says she consented to taking her brother off of life support, but later learned that her real brother was in jail.
"I nearly fainted because I killed somebody that I didn't even know. I gave consent," she said.
Freddy Clarence Williams, 40, was admitted to St. Barnabas Hospital on July 15. He was identified using his social security card, and hospital staff called Powell to tell her that her brother was near death.
"He had tubes in his mouth, a neck brace,'' Powell told The Post. "He was a little swollen .?.?. [But] he resembled my brother so much. He couldn't speak from the time they brought him in the hospital. They just assumed it was my brother."
Doctors performed tests and told Powell that her brother was brain-dead and no hope for recovery, the Post reports.
When family members came to say their goodbyes, her sister was skeptical.
"She walked up into the room and said, 'That is not my brother,'?" Powell recalled.
Through the man's swollen eyebrows, nose, and facial structure, Powell's sister eventually saw the resemblence and Frederick Williams was taken off of life support.
The family started to make funeral arrangements, until a call from the Medical Examiner's office identifying the dead man as Freddy Clarence Williams. Powell's brother had been locked up on Rikers Island on an assault charge.
Powell said she's tried to determine the identity of the other man, but the request was denied due to privacy concerns. Her lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.
