You may have heard the story this week about a tragic case of mistaken identity.  If not, here’s the low-down:

The casket was closed for Whitney Cerak’s funeral more than a month ago. Her mother, Colleen, declined to look at the body, battered as it was in a collision between a van and a tractor-trailer.

"They wanted to remember her the way she was," said Cerak’s grandfather, Emil Frank.

Meanwhile, the family of Laura VanRyn, another victim of the crash, kept vigil by a hospital bed. The severely injured young woman was in a coma for a time, but the family’s blog detailed the many small steps she made toward recovery: feeding herself applesauce, playing Connect Four with a therapist.

But as her condition improved, Laura Van Ryn’s family realized they had the wrong woman, and Colleen Cerak realized she had not buried her daughter.

Yup.  The girl who diedin the car accident on April 26 was actually Laura VanRyn, and the girl going through recovery was Colleen Cerak.

The mistake was understandable, since both girls were horribly mangled in the accident.

Anyway, here’s the VanRyn family blog mentioned in the article above.

Here is the post from May 29.  It seems clear (now with 20/20 hindsight) that their "daughter’s" condition, while improving, was raising some red flags:

While certain things seem to be coming back to her, she still has times where she’ll say things that don’t make much sense.

And here’s the particular entry two days later, where the VanRyn family reveals (to their dismay) that the "daughter" by whomn they’ve kept a bedside vigil, is not their daughter, but their daughter’s friend:

We have some hard news to share with you today. 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 Cerak family came down from Gaylord and we had the privelege of meeting with them this morning. While we discussed some of the action steps that will need to take place over the next couple of days, we were also able to share with them some of the great things we have seen Whitney accomplish over the past month. It is a sorrow and a joy for us to learn of this turn of events. For us, we will mourn Laura’s going home and will greatly miss her compassionate heart and sweetness while knowing that she is safe and with her King forever. We rejoice with the Ceraks, that they will have more time on this earth with their daughter, sister, and loved one.