Callum Jones
A woman from Maryland has been forced to prove she's alive after making the 'frightening' discovery that she'd been mistakenly declared dead.
Nicole Paulino, from Gaithersburg, attempted to go through the usually pain-free process of renewing a driver's license back in November - but for her, it was anything but.
In the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration’s system, Paulino was shocked and even 'frightened' to discover that she'd been declared dead.
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She told NBC4 Washington: "It then appears that I am deceased. I got a little frightened, I’m not gonna lie, and surprised, because I am alive. I’m here."
While you'd think it would be pretty simple to change the data, as Paulino is obviously here with us now, it was a living nightmare for her to change the status within the system.
Paulino was told she couldn't renew her license because of her 'deceased status', while her health insurance was cancelled for herself and her three children.
As a result, the medical bills have been building up and Paulino has even been left without an inhaler which she so desperately needs for her asthma.
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Emotionally, Paulino added: "This really, really messes up my life. It has affected me a lot."
Once the Maryland woman's story went viral after it was picked up by News 4, she began to get some answers.
The outlet reached out to many Maryland government agencies to figure out how the mistake could happen, which led to them ringing Paulino to confirm the mistake occurred because of a typo.
See, a funeral home had tried to report someone deceased but got a digit wrong in the Social Security number.
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They ultimately sent off the number for Paulino instead, hence why she is down as 'deceased' on records.
News4 discovered that 10,000 of these cases happen in the US every single day, and less than one third are corrected.
Attorney Joseph McClelland told the outlet: "This happens almost on a daily basis. The impact is the worst impact you can have on your credit report."
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Paulino has since got things sorted, though she believes that wouldn't have happened if she hadn't gone to the press to tell her story.
She added: "I tried doing it myself and I didn’t get anything resolved. If it wasn’t for NBC news that offered to help me, I would have never gotten this problem resolved."
The whole fiasco has affected her 'health [and] my mental health', Paulino admitted.