You guys if you havent shared this yet- please do! We need other to see this. It can serve as a warning that even when you do everything right for some reason these people have the power to do as they please! We need others to see how grieving parents were treated by this man in particular- we need to make sure he doesnt get to treat anyone else like this! And we need the right person to pick up on it and look into Mr. Coles operating procedures because we still dont know if he legally amended this document or not among other things! Would you want your loved ones treated like this? If the answer is no then please SHARE! On July 25, 2014 my family welcomed our beautiful son Asher into this world, after a glorious 6 hours and 9 minutes, Asher passed away. Prior to his birth Asher was diagnosed with Trisomy 13, a chromosomal condition which is usually fatal. Knowing this information during my pregnancy meant that instead of planning a nursery for my son I would be planning a funeral. Planning for your child to die before he has even taken his first breath is not an easy task. I made all the preparations for Asher’s birth (and eventual death) that I could during my pregnancy. The one thing that I could not do was call someone to talk about picking up my son’s body from the hospital and having him cremated. So I delegated this one task to someone else. They recommended me to Cole Funeral Services (4110 Aspen Hill Rd #100, Rockville, MD 20853 (301) 871-1444). It is still unclear how that recommendation came about but I am sure that after this there will be no more recommendations for Cole Funeral Service. I was told that the owner, AJ Cole, would pick our son up anytime we needed him to (that there was a 24 hour pick up policy), and that he would do all we needed and have our precious boy cremated for $200 because he ‘had a heart for infants.’ This is what Mr. Cole told the person who contact him for me in an email a month prior to Asher’s birth. That person then contacted Mr. Cole when I delivered Asher and let him know that we would be ready for his services in the next 2-3 days. He said this was fine and he would be expecting our call. I did not speak with Mr. Cole until the day we were ready to leave the hospital (Sunday, July 27). We called him around noon and told him that whenever he would be ready that we were being discharged. We agreed on a time a few hours later and per his request had him hammer out the details with our nurse. We did not want to leave our sons body alone in the room, nor did we want to watch someone take him and then leave him alone in the morgue. That is just a thought too much to bear. So the nurse and Mr. Cole decided that when he arrived, he would call her and she would come and hold sweet Asher in her arms until we were able to leave the maternity ward. The nurse came and told us that Mr. Cole was there and we asked for 5 minutes. Just 5 more minutes to say goodbye to our son’s earthly body, one that we would never get to touch or see again. Ever. She came back about 10 minutes later and we gave her our son. And then we walked out of the hospital empty handed. We still needed to go sign the papers for Asher’s cremation and death certificate. When we spoke with Mr. Cole earlier in the day we explained to him that we didn’t think we could handle following him to his office. We asked if he would mind if we went and grabbed a bite to eat before we met him. He said that would not be a problem at all. So we went somewhere right down the street, and were at Mr. Coles office an hour and a half after we left the hospital. His office is about 20 minutes from the hospital. When we got to his office Mr. Cole greeted us and sat down to fill out paper work. The entire time he was just talking and talking and TALKING. To parents who just handed over their baby boy Mr. Cole decided that he would talk our ears off about “2nd generation Montgomery County-ians” and how all his best friends are Catholic priests and how corrupt their churches are. We were there for about 40 minutes at this point just listening to this crap. And all while he was talking, he was filling out our paperwork. When he handed over the documents, he even stated to us to make sure everything was correct because changing a Death Certificate once it was issued was near impossible. My husband and I noticed on his rough copy for our son’s Death Certificate, in the spot for his time of death was the time that he was born. We told him that it was wrong and that it needed to be fixed. He seemed legitimately confused. It took a solid 2 minutes to explain to him that it was the wrong time. He then drew an arrow from the spot for time of death to a blank area above the page where he wrote the correct time. My husband even asked him if he was sure that it would be correct because he didn’t cross anything out, only drew an arrow. He assured us that when his wife typed it up she would know what that meant and that he was sorry but his “ADHD medicine starts to wear off around this time.” So we didn’t question it again because this is his job, and as we heard during his non-stop talking session, he had been doing this for 20 years or so. We left that day and were told that our son’s cremains would be ready on Wednesday (July 30). Well Wednesday came and passed and we heard nothing from him. So on Thursday (July 31) morning my husband called him. Mr. Cole told him that they would be ready later that afternoon and that he would call him back. We still hadn’t heard from him that afternoon so at 1:20pm my husband texted him. Mr. Cole said that he would be at his office at 2:30pm. So we drove from our home in Frederick to his office in Rockville (more like Aspen Hill), which is about a 45 minute drive. When we arrived he gave us the box with his cremains, showed us the tag that goes with it and then he pulled out the death certificate. Written on my son’s Death Certificate in the box for Time of Death was his time of birth. I almost threw up. I had to leave the room. My husband told him that this was unacceptable and that we corrected his mistake already and how could he do this? We told him that he would get it fixed the next morning. He apologized and said that he would absolutely have it fixed. So here we are two parents who have met and lost their child less than a week ago and now we have just seen his time of birth listed as his time of death. I know that it is only a piece of paper. And one that I will probably rarely in my lifetime even look at. But my son only lived on this earth for 6 hours and 9 minutes and so to see the time that he took his first breath listed as the one that he took his last, is just heartbreaking beyond words. It was actually quite devastating. So my husband texted him. Here is the text: “I want you to know I’m very disappointed in your service. I hope you have everything settled for me tomorrow morning. Isaiah’s Promise will be hearing about my disappointment and issues.” (Note: Isaiah’s Promise is a wonderful organization who helped us greatly during our pregnancy with Asher. The recommendation for Cole Funeral Services came from them and I still have not been able to sit down with the person who recommended them but I can almost 100% guarantee that they will never recommend this man again) Mr. Cole did not respond to the text. The next day (Friday, August 1) around 1pm we still had not heard from Mr. Cole. So I called him. He got on the phone and said his guy was in Baltimore now and that he would be done soon. I told him that he could drop it off at my address which is listed on the certificate because this is not my mistake and I wasn’t going to take another hour and a half round trip. Sometime around dinner time a guy showed up with the Death Certificate. When we opened it, I could have lost it. On my son’s Death Certificate in the box for time of death his time of birth (10:58am) was still listed, but crossed out in an ink pen, and on top of that, on top of the words ‘Time of Death’ was the correct time 5:07pm. A single line through my son’s time of birth. A single line. And on top of it? His time of death. It was like 5:07pm, the moment my sweet baby took his final breath, was the victor. It was gut-wrenching to see. I told my husband that this needed to be handled because the Momma Bear in me was about to blow. So my husband texted him, a photo of the time crossed out and this message: “This is what you give me a time that is crossed out in pen and a stamped new time on it this is completely unacceptable I would like a full refund and we are taking action into our own hands thank you.” Then I guess he decided to call him. Mr. Cole answered the phone and immediately began attacking my husband. So my husband quickly hung up, came inside and grabbed my phone to make a recording. And that is what this link is to. I beg of all of you to pass this along. Do not let this man get away with treating people this way, people who are going through the worst time of their lives- losing a loved one. This man is scum and if he can talk to us this way after we just lost a baby, I can’t imagine how he actually runs the behind the scenes of his business. I plan to report him to every place that I can. If you can think of any, please let me know. It has taken me this long to come forward with this because I wanted to get through some of the harder parts of losing Asher first. I wanted to make sure that no matter how terribly this man treated us that I didn’t let the devil steal my joy. Again, please I ask you to all pass this along. I would love for it to go viral- I don’t want anyone else to go through what he put us through. youtu.be/bs7kW3PnDWc?list=UU61Pi1irotoKE5lNxFHeqNA
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 22:29:17 +0000
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