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A family are celebrating after discovering the daughter they were told had died in a car crash is alive after a hospital mix-up.
However, the news meant heartache for the parents of the girl's best friend - as it emerged it was their daughter who died in the accident.
Abby Guerra’s funeral was due to take place today after her parents were told she had been killed in the crash along with another friend.
However, on Saturday, hospital officials in Glendale, Arizona, announced the 19-year-old was alive and in a coma.
A mix up at the crash scene had led to the talented young football player being mistaken for her best friend, 21-year-old Marlena Cantu.
Abby had suffered severe head injuries, a broken back and punctured lung and was unrecognisable due to facial swelling and having her head shaved for a brain operation.
Marlena’s family had maintained a bedside vigil after being told she was in a critical condition while Abby’s friends and family were told to prepare the teenager's funeral.
Staff at Evansville College in Indiana where Abby was a star member of the soccer team posted an online tribute as they mourned her death.
It wasn't until dental records were finally checked that authorities realised there had been a mix-up.
The young woman lying in a coma in a Phoenix hospital was Abby while Marlena had died at the scene of the crash.
The victims had been returning from a trip to Disneyland in LA when their 4x4 suffered a rear tyre blow-out.
Tyler Parker, 20, also died at the scene.
Abby’s aunt Dorenda Cisneros said the family was overjoyed she had survived, but felt sympathy for the Cantu family.
'I mean, you're ecstatic for one - I mean, it's a miracle - but in the same you feel angry, because we mourned all week,' she said.
Colleen Donovan kept a vigil outside what she thought was Marlena’s hospital room.
‘You're not looking for differences,’ she said.
‘It didn't look like anyone I'd ever seen.
'Every day her parents went to the hospital having hope that she's living one more day, then to find out it's not her.
'And Abby's parents, too. They've gone through all these emotions, and now they find out she's really alive. Abby still has a struggle to survive.'
The mix-up mirrors that of another mistaken identity case involving two girls in the U.S. in 2006.
Whitney Cerak, 20, was thought to have been among four students who died when their van crashed in Indiana.
But five weeks after the accident, the family of another student, Laura Van Ryn, realised the hospitalised young woman they thought was their daughter actually was Whitney
Source: UK Daily Mail
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