Caledonia, Mich. ? In one small Michigan town, they are talking excitedly about welcoming home a beloved friend they thought they had buried. In another, the news is still sinking in that a young woman believed to have survived a horrific crash five weeks ago is dead.

“We’re so elated, it’s almost unbelievable,” said Joe Duff, city manager of Whitney Cerak’s hometown of Gaylord, population 3,700. “But the community’s kind of torn because there’s another community and another family that’s going through exactly the kind of terrible loss that we went through.”

Cerak, a 19-year-old student at Indiana’s Taylor University, was thought to have died until a stunning case of mistaken identity was discovered: She had been confused with fellow student Laura VanRyn, who was incorrectly thought to have survived the wreck.

Cerak strongly resembled VanRyn, and she suffered injuries that left her in a coma and a neck brace, with a swollen face and broken bones, cuts and bruises.

VanRyn, 22, and Cerak were among 10 students and staff members riding in a university van when it was hit by a tractor-trailer that crossed the median of Interstate 69 on April 26. Five people were killed, including a woman everyone thought was Cerak.

This combination of undated photos released by Taylor University, shows Whitney Cerak, left, and Laura VanRyn, both students at Taylor University. The family of Cerak was incorrectly told Whitney had died in an April 26, 2006 van crash, while the family of VanRyn was erroneously informed Laura was in a coma. Cerak, 18, of Gaylord, Mich., actually has been hospitalized since the crash. VanRyn, 22, died in the crash.

VanRyn’s relatives stood vigil at the woman’s bed at a rehabilitation center in Grand Rapids. The relatives kept a blog in which they detailed the many small steps she made toward recovery: feeding herself applesauce, playing Connect Four with a therapist.

But as her condition improved, the two families gradually realized that the young woman was not VanRyn after all.

She replied “Whitney” several times in recent days after VanRyn’s parents addressed her as “Laura,” Spectrum Health spokeswoman Anne Veltema said. During a recent therapy session, staff members asked her to write her name, and she scrawled “Whitney Cerak.”

The Grant County, Ind., coroner’s office apologized for the error Wednesday. Coroner Ron Mowery said students had identified the survivor as VanRyn but no scientific testing was conducted.

“I can’t stress enough that we did everything we knew to do under those circumstances, and trusted the same processes and the same policies that we always do,” Mowery said. “And this tragedy unfolded like we could never have imagined.”