Don Van Ryn

This book was definitely worth reading but left me with a strange feeling afterwards. A group of teens are in a serious car accident. One girl survives and ends up in a serious condition in hospital. Another of the girls dies. Somehow there is a mix-up and the wrong family is notified that their daughter is in the hospital. The family with the surviving daughter are notified mistakenly that their daughter has died and start the grieving process.

This is when the story becomes almost show more unbelievable....the family that attend the hospital don't realise that it is not their daughter/sister/relative that has survived. They recognise the girl in the hospital as their own family member even though she is not. It is only when the girl is finally able to start communicating that she writes her real name down and the truth is revealed...

I don't know whether the family just wanted their daughter to be alive so much that they ignored the signs or whether they didn't consider the alternative. Some extended family members did raise concerns and there were signs along the way that this was not their family member but they refused to accept them.

Both families are Christian and I think this helps them to deal with the situation when the truth is revealed. I just found the whole idea a bit creepy and more like something from a movie than real life. I guess I just found it hard to believe that two people could look so alike that their family members could get them confused even after a car accident. I found it even more odd when looking at the pictures of the two girls they don't look at all alike. It's just terrible for the family that thought they were at the bedside of their daughter when actually she had already died.

Incredible story, seemingly unbelievable... show less

Top 10 book for me--maybe top 5. I've read it 2 times and listened to the book on tape once. These people are real. They have a Midwestern, could-be-my-neighbor feel about them. What happened to them is so beyond most of our ability to fathom, and their response to it could only be the result of supernatural intervention--that would be God.

The story is compelling. It was brilliant to start with the prologue that brings you to the hours leading up to the reunion of Whitney with her own show more family. This let the reader know that this book was not written for some kind of dramatic effect, but for the telling of a real story. The climax of the book is right at the beginning to allow the rest of the book to be about the details. Identifying Whitney as Laura (rather than the girl we thought was Laura) throughout the first part of the story really allowed the reader to live in the Van Ryans' world as much as possible. This was critical to allowing the reader be a part of the emotional ups and downs in this book.

As I read this story, I couldn't help but find myself imagining being in either families shoes(and praying that I wouldn't be). I found myself choked up repeatedly throughout this book and even shaking my head in disbelief even in the face of what I new what was coming.

Thank you Ceraks and Van Ryans for being faithful followers of Christ when it mattered and for being willing to share this story. You have somehow managed to convey an exceeding amount of humility and faith through this that can not be faked. show less

How on earth, in this day and age with forensic scientists and DNA and dental records etc, etc, could a situation like this happen? One person gets mistaken for another. That's all I'll say because I don't want to spoil the book for you if you're planning on reading it but I just shake my head.

The mistake has far-reaching consequences for both families involved and your heart just bleeds for them. Besides the emotional component, I didn't really find the book particularly well-written and show more they certainly pour on the religious doctrine. I don't mind that usually if it's sincere but when it takes place in a conversation between three people, you can't help but think 'how realistic is this? I don't talk like this!'. show less

You probably remember this story from the news: a van carrying a group of students from Taylor University is involved in a horrible crash with five dead. After 5 weeks, it is discovered that there had been an error in identification, and that Laura Van Ryn, whose family had been by her side 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, was actually Whitney Cerak.

Let that sink in a minute. The Cerak family had buried "Whitney" weeks earlier, and her mother, Colleen, gets a phone call at 2:00 a.m. saying show more that there is reason to believe her daughter is actually alive.

Let that sink in a minute.

Mistaken Identity was co-written by the Ceraks and the Van Ryn families, and it is just an incredible story. Had it not been true and this had been a novel, I'd have thought it implausible.

All the little questions I had during the intense media coverage of this a couple years ago were answered. Things like, "Okay, so they were both blond and attractive, but they don't look that much alike," and "How could a mother not know her own child?" There were, in fact, little things that in hindsight should have been utter giveaways, but when you don't have any reason to believe that it is not your daughter lying in that bed in a coma, you just accept as fluke-y, and the fact the Van Ryns did so is totally understandable.

All those details are fascinating -- the fact that Laura's sister thought it odd that none of the clothes she got at the hospital that her sister had been wearing were things she recognized; the difference in the teeth (not noticed for weeks because a respirator was in her mouth, and then dismissed as possibly related to the violence of the wreck knocking things askew); the fact that "Laura" had a pierced belly-button and her sister was sure she'd have told her if she'd done that.

It is only at the end of the grueling 5 weeks, when "Laura" begins talking that questions arise. The fact that she calls out names the Van Ryns don't recognize is explained away by the nurses as "her neurons are firing, but not firing correctly, so who knows where that name came from?" With no real reason to doubt that "Laura" isn't "Laura," I have a feeling I'd have let it go, too.

Mistaken Identity truly captures the roller-coaster of emotions of both these families, and what became their tender care of each other when the unimaginable mistake was discovered. What is most amazing is the very obvious comfort the faith of both these families brought them in their most devastating moments.

While I can't say this book is brilliantly written, it is raw, and it is real, and it is stunning. show less