MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – It has been 19 days since Tom Sosnoski died suddenly after collapsing from cardiac arrest in a Publix grocery store. Nineteen long days for his widow, as she worked to get answers as to why Tom’s body is still sitting in a funeral home.
Kathy Sosnoski wants to fulfill her husband’s wishes to be cremated before she can begin the painful process of figuring out how to move on without him. But a paperwork disaster kept that from happening – until she reached out to 8 On Your Side’s Better Call Behnken.
Sosnoski learned this week, after her story aired on News Channel 8, that doctors finally agreed to sign off on his death certificate, listing a cause of death, which is required by Florida law before a body can be cremated.
“I’m so relieved,” she said. “This whole process should not have taken this long, and it has prolonged my pain.”
The long wait was due to a lack of communication among medical professionals.
Doctors at Manatee Memorial Hospital said the cause of the death was sudden cardiac arrest and did not recommend an autopsy. But no one at the hospital agreed to sign the death certificate. The body was then released to Griffith-Cline Funeral Home. The incomplete death certificate was sent, along with hospital records, to Tom Sosnoski’s primary care doctor, but he refused to list a cause of death, writing only, “cause unknown.”
That’s not good enough for the funeral home to move forward with cremation. State law requires a cause of death before the local medical examiner can approve a cremation.
Tom’s primary care doctor, Suresh Mishra, was asked to sign off on the death certificate but at first told 8 On Your Side he could not agree with emergency room doctors on the cause of death because he did not see the body himself.
“I cannot make a prognosis and put down a cause of death when it is not known to me,” Mishra said when first asked about this on Monday. Mishra said the medical examiner should do an autopsy, but no one has requested it.
8 On Your Side called state officials who said this went on way too long and that the doctors involved needed to either state a cause of death or order an autopsy so this grieving family came begin to get closure.
State officials consulted with the Manatee Medical Examiner’s Office, and a call was made to Mishra. The doctor finally agreed to sign the certificate, but only after the medical examiner sent a letter, stating he believed the cause of death was natural and no autopsy was needed.
As for Sosnoski, she is relieved this part of the process is almost over, as her husband’s body is expected to be cremated this week. Sosnoski said she was fine with an autopsy, she just wanted this part of the process finished before the celebration of life gathering that was held for her husband last weekend. Instead, she was forced to hold the gathering for out-of-state family and friends, even without Tom’s ashes.
The plan now is to spread Tom’s ashes at a memorial garden next month, during an already-planned ceremony for Tom’s mother, who passed away in July. Now, mother and son will come to their final resting place together.
“Nobody was communicating with each other,” Kathy Sosnoski said. “Everybody was thinking about themselves and not the situation and luckily with you drawing attention to it, everybody was cooperating and talking to you and getting it done.”
