GLOUCESTER, Mass. (AP) -- A woman believed to have died after a house fire has been discovered alive in a Boston hospital.
Relatives of Susan Anderson had already had the body they believed was hers cremated, and they had arranged for her obituary to appear Monday in The Gloucester Times.
``I'm just as numb as when I received the news that she died, but happily numbed this time,'' Anderson's stepmother, Dorothy Ramsey Stoffa, told the newspaper.
Two women suffering from smoke inhalation and covered in soot were taken to a Gloucester hospital last week. One died and the other was flown to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Police Chief Michael McLeod said.
The state Medical Examiner's office identified the woman who died as Anderson, McLeod said.
He said he didn't know how the mistake was made. ``That's what we're trying to find out. That's the mystery right now,'' McLeod said.
The mistake was discovered Sunday by a man who visited the patient in Boston, thinking it was his daughter, officials said.
The dead woman's identify was not immediately released.
