This kind of thing happens way to often.

I've never heard of it going to the point of ordering the end of someone's life.

Infections, leaving instruments inside of patients, bad diagnoses, providing opioids without laxatives and on and on.

...and that leading to ending the life of the patient by a person who thought they were ending the life of a family member but who were in fact ending the life of a perfect stranger.

It makes no mention how how they even got this woman’s number in the first place if he had nothing but a Social Sec card on him. Nor do they investigate the policies of the hospital as to how they make an ID in these circumstances and whether or not they followed their own policies.

Those are two pretty simple and basic pieces of info the author didn’t ask.

I know, because that's how the ER docs found me when my father collapsed on the streets in another state.

Now, we were lucky -- I'd placed an adoption search entry up for his two other children once they'd turned 18, and included the name of the social worker and the county she fortunately still worked in. Even more fortunate, Dad had returned to that same county just a few months before they found him.

So when they Googled, they were able to find someone with his full name AND a direct tie to the county he was found in. AND a local contact who could confirm if the patient was likely to be the same person. And, since the social worker and I had spoken prior to me placing the information online, she had my email.

Yes, I received the notice via email. But there are also people search engines, and if they were going by those... often if you pay, there will be phone numbers available.