A spokesman for a Little Rock hospital blamed "miscommunication" for an error in a Pulaski County coroner's report that led the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to inaccurately report that a Jacksonville man who died Thursday had tested positive for covid-19.
The newspaper reported that Jeffery Owens, 60, was admitted to the John L. McClellan Memorial Veterans Hospital on Thursday complaining of shortness of breath, and tested positive for the disease caused by the coronavirus. He died at 3:20 p.m.
Senior deputy coroner Karen Cumming, who coordinates with the media on covid-19 cases, provided the coroner's report to this newspaper at roughly 5 p.m. Thursday.
That initial coroner's report said a hospital staffer told the investigator assigned to the case that "the decedent tested positive for the covid-19 virus."
Shortly before 6 p.m. Thursday, the hospital's administrator on duty called the investigator to report that the man had, in fact, tested negative for covid-19, according to an updated version of the coroner's report obtained by the newspaper Friday.
The coroner's office did not notify the newspaper of the update until Friday morning, after the error was published. Cumming, who was out of the office Thursday evening, said she notified the newspaper "as soon as I knew."
"I was just notified about it this morning," Cumming said Friday. "The staff [that] was here, they would not have known that I would have emailed you the report."
Chris Durney, a spokesman for the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System, said he would look into how the mistake occurred.
"I think there was an unfortunate miscommunication," Durney said.
Attempts to reach the man's family have been unsuccessful.
A Section on 04/18/2020