MOSCOW, October 11 (RIA Novosti) - Police from the Alaskan capital Juneau have apologized to a family for mistakenly informing them that one of their sons had died in a car crash, AP reported on Saturday.
Early on Thursday, the Juneau police visited the parents of Justin Priest to tell them that their son had died in a car accident, having sped into a tree.
The family, however, was stunned to find him alive and well; he opened the door of his girlfriend’s apartment when they came in person to share the bad news.
The family called the police, who apologized for the mistake.
“I'm almost speechless for words," AP quotes Chief Bryce Johnson as saying. “This shouldn’t happen.”
Police said they wanted troopers to contact the Priest family to find out if the crash victim was their son.
The request was unclearly transmitted or misinterpreted, Johnson said, and the officer assumed that the assignment was to notify the family that he’d died.
“We have to take responsibility for that,” Johnson said.
Police say there were two other people in the vehicle who were injured in the crash.
A 50-year-old man was seriously hurt, while a 30-year-old woman walked away from the crash with minor injuries.
