Perception Lleads to Hheartache and Ggrief
On January 4,2007 Robert {R.J.} Anheier collapsed at 6th and West Burnside and later died at Good Samaritanthe hospital from heart failure. He was a kind and gentle soul who was perceived from the start of this tragedy to be homeless because of his appearance. That false assumption and the Medical Examiner's unwillingness to locate R.J.'s family and friends which eventually led to him being donated to O.H.S.U. as a cadaver. as indigent and unclaimed. Why you may ask did this happen? The answer to that has many parts and so called mistakes and what I consider to be a flawed law in Oregon.
When R.J. died in the hospital E.R. he was seen as homeless though all the facts pointed to the opposite. but because of his appearance he was labeled as such. He had the keys to his apartment on him, his state I.D. with his address and apartment number, and fifteen dollars in cash. still Aall of this was ignored by the Medical Examiner's office during their investigation. and attempts to notify next of kin, Wwe were have been told in a meeting with them this was due to inexperience of the investigators on the case. I believe it was because they saw him as homeless and wanted to be done with the case as soon as possible.
A man named Jeff Anheier was contacted on the 5th of January as possible next of kin, but he told the investigators on the 7th that he was no relation and that is where their investigation ended. R.J. was sent to the funeral home who then sent or donated him to O.H.S.U. for (insert here the amount of money). as a cadaver because he was deemed indigent and unclaimed and As pper OR. Statute 97.170 any indigent unclaimed or child in the custody of the state must be offered to O.H.S.U. as a cadaver. He was not indigent and would have been claimed had the M.E.'s office done their job correctly.
This all resulted in none of his friends or family knowing what happened to him until March 19th 2007. The subsequent attempts to excuse or cover up what went wrong only serve to perpetuate the problem. Our attempt, accessing the same software the M. E.'s office used, brought up R.J.'s best friends and his sister. My friend and brother deserves red better than the way he was treated, but at least he is with family now and we continue are trying to change policies at the State so that this does not happen to anyone else or their family and friends again
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