A baby's body was found by a laundry service employee who was washing linens from Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Police Chief Roger Pohlman of Red Wing Police said to the AP that the baby's body fell out of a sheet at Crothall Laundry on Tuesday. The laundry employees called Regions Hospital in St. Paul who owns the sheets and someone from the hospital came and retrieved the body.
The laundry employee was interviewed by investigators but Pohlman said to the AP that the baby's identity have not been released. Authorities also said that the linens were delivered to the laundry service within 48 hours of the discovery.
USA Today reported that the officials were called before 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday. The baby had an ankle tag on and was wearing a diaper. The hospital said on Wednesday that they were working to notify the family of baby and offer their apologies. The baby was a stillborn boy, reported USA Today and the linens in the morgue were reportedly mistaken for laundry the hospital said in a statement.
"This was a terrible mistake, and we are deeply sorry," said Chris Boese, chief nursing officer at Regions Hospital to USA Today. "We have processes in place that should have prevented this but did not. We are working to identify the gap in our system and to make sure this does not happen again.
Investigators at St Paul Police Department learned that the boy was born on April 4th as a stillborn.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that the hospital delivers about 2,500 babies each year and has about two stillborn babies born every month. This is the first time on record that an infant's remains have been lost.
"Police still are trying to determine how the body ended up in a sheet shipped to the laundry facility, but Red Wing Police Chief Roger Pohlman said he sees no indication of foul play," reported USA Today.
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