Hospital staff in Oregon are accused of sending grieving parents on a four-hour drive home with their dead infant in the back seat of their car. A lawsuit filed by Aleksandr and Nataliya Yeremeyev seeks $10 million from Salem Health and a doctor there, alleging the hospital refused to hold their 8-month-old son Michael's body in a morgue or arrange for professional transport after he died following a Christian retreat in Salem in September 2024, reports the Spokesman-Review. Staff allegedly told the Seattle couple that transport provided by a funeral home would be "too expensive" and instead suggested laying the boy flat on the back seat, providing only a handwritten note on a prescription pad to document his death, court papers say.
"Throughout the drive, Aleksandr was in a state of shock and grief and feared being stopped by police, being involved in a collision, and the ongoing deterioration of his son's body," the complaint notes. The suit adds that, after the family arrived back home in Seattle, Aleksandr had to clean the car he drove Michael home in because fluids had seeped from the boy's body. Michael, who was born with Down syndrome, had spent the first six months of his life at Seattle Children's Hospital, per FOX 13. "His parents had made sure that he had received really excellent care," their attorney said. "So, I think it was a really, really sad and just very tragic way for his life to end and for it to be so undignified."
The family's attorneys say medical experts have been stunned by the account, per the Spokesman-Review, and that the Yeremeyevs plan to also pursue punitive damages at trial. In a statement, Salem Health expressed its condolences for Michael's death, though it wouldn't comment on specifics due to the ongoing litigation, noting simply that they'd "responded in accordance with the family's wishes and followed both hospital policy and Oregon state law in consultation with the appropriate local authorities, including the medical examiner."
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