Mom Received Text Message From Her 'Dead' Son Days Before His Funeral

Earlier this year, Heather Insley was informed by a call from Ottawa's Montfort Hospital that her eldest son was in a very serious condition.

After a four-hour drive from her place, she arrived to find a man in a hospital bed, who she believed was her son, Sean Cox.

Credit: Dan Taekema/CBC

"He had the same haircut, same thick hair like my boy did - his long eyelashes," she told CBC.

She shared that her son, who was 43, had battled addiction in the past, and she assumed his death was due to complications related to substance abuse.

After accepting her son's death, Insley made the choice to donate his organs and arranged for him to be cremated.

"We planned the funeral. I never knew what it would feel like to lose a child, and it was awful," she explained.

Nevertheless, after spending several days grappling with the details of the ceremony, Insley received an unexpected text message.

Credit: Heather Insley

According to the news outlet, the message was from someone claiming to be Cox, her son, asking for money.

Upon receiving the message, she immediately called her husband Bill, who thought it was a cruel joke. Astonishingly, this text wasn't an isolated prank.

The grieving mother stated that she received another message from the same number a few days later.

In hopes of catching the person behind the messages, Insley called the number and asked to speak to her son.

To her surprise, she soon heard her son's voice on the other end of the line.

Credit: Heather Insley

After receiving the messages, the Ottawa police were called in to locate Cox, who eventually showed up at his mother's doorstep.

Speaking about coming face-to-face with the son after four years apart, the Canadian woman said: 

"I thought, ‘Oh my God, your funeral's tomorrow’.

"I thought, I'm so happy he's alive, but I just went through all that mourning."

Cox expressed to the news outlet that he felt like he had been granted a "second chance" at life.

Now, if the person in the hospital bed wasn't Cox, then who was it?

Credit: Dan Taekema/CBC

Martin Sauvé, the director of communications at Montfort, informed the publication that they were notified in January about a "misidentification of a patient" that had occurred.

"True identity of the deceased patient has since been confirmed. The families involved have been informed," he said via email correspondence.

"We offer our most sincere condolences to the loved ones of the deceased patient, and offer our apologies to both families involved for the distress caused by this situation."

Speaking about the mix-up, Insley said: 

"It was a grave mistake on their part and I blame myself for it ... but I believed it was him without a shadow of a doubt."

Credit: Dan Taekema/CBC

"It was awful to think that I had lost my son, but at the same time, we showed love and everything to the other young man. We never left his side," she continued.

"We stayed right with him, just as though he was our own son."

Upon realizing that the man in the morgue wasn't her son, Insley provided officials with handprints of the unidentified man to aid in his identification.

She also suggested that Montfort Hospital should implement similar measures in the future to prevent other families from experiencing the anguish her family went through.