OSSINING, NY — Funeral Director George Camp is a Rotarian, and he's worked for years on Rotary International's global fight against the polio virus, even going to Pakistan to give out vaccines.
"But I've never seen anything like this," he said. "I've been licensed 43 years, and I've owned Dorsey Funeral Home for 40, and I never thought I'd see anything like this."
The new coronavirus pandemic has led to chaos in the death-and-burial system in New York, he told Patch. "The system broke down."
So many dead — funeral homes, cemeteries and crematoriums beyond capacity, and the families all in shock.
"The families are in shock," he said. "And the cemetery workers are afraid."
Most of the cemeteries won't allow mourners in during burials.
"People are afraid. We have seen some cemetery workers with moon suits on." He went to one local cemetery for a burial, and at the front gate workers wanted to spray down the coffin while it was still in the hearse.
And the churches, of course, are closed. "We've done services in our parking lot," he said.
Dorsey is located in Ossining, one of the hardest-hit communities in Westchester County, home to New York's first hot spot. In two months, deaths from COVID-19 have topped 1,000 in Westchester and 18,321 statewide. As of Thursday, there were 28,970 confirmed cases in Westchester, more than 800 of them in Ossining, out of 304,372 cases statewide.
Camp and his associates are working 12-to-14-hour days. And people don't want to come inside — not even his sisters, who have been leaving food on the porch.
As the outbreak worsened in Westchester, one of the county's cemeteries closed. Others were suddenly booked three weeks out, which was an immediate problem for families who didn't want their loved one's body embalmed. Camp warned county emergency officials they'd need refrigerator trucks at all the hospitals.
And it's not as if we didn't know, he said. "It wasn't whether — it was when this was going to happen." Six years ago, he attended a disaster-preparation seminar in New York City, and one talk was by a senior medical examiner who warned everyone to stay healthy. "They talked about mass burials if funeral directors became sick."
He had put in a supply of personal protective equipment for everyone on staff, he said. "But we did get caught short with gowns and hand sanitizer."
Everyone is scared, he said. Some funeral directors at first refused to handle COVID-19 victims for embalming. "It reminded me of the 1980s in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when everyone was scared," he said. "My first AIDS victim came with instructions — we were to treat it as if the person had had cholera."
He's particularly sad about the people dying in nursing homes, whose relatives haven't been able to visit for two months.
The pandemic has also forced the funeral home to send two instead of one person to pick up the bodies. Usually, staffers at a nursing home are willing to give a hand. Not now. "We can't get staff to help us. They're afraid. If I didn't have so much training I would probably be the same."
Plus, he said, "The families are just crushed."
Actually, that's true of all his clients right now, he said. "Normally, by the end of the services and burial, people are on their way to recovery. Not now. No visitation, no funeral, no graveside service, no gatherings to reminisce."
Now, the help Dorsey's staff is able to give is getting a burial or cremation scheduled.
Camp is not only handling funerals of local residents but, like most funeral homes in Westchester, also for desperate families from New York City, where cemeteries are also booked more than four weeks out.
"We're being creative," he said. "I just went to the internet and looked up all the crematoriums in New York State."
Now they're driving 80-90 miles or more to a place that doesn't have a backlog. That way, the burial gets done, or families get remains back in four to five days, instead of waiting weeks with the body in a refrigerated trailer.
"Originally, we were going to Poughkeepsie," he said. "Now we're going even further."
One family from the Bronx even followed them upstate, he said. The cortege traveled for two hours. Then the cars all pulled up outside the cemetery, because only the hearse was allowed in. They sat quietly until the hearse came out. Then they turned around and drove away.
SEE: 50 Bodies In Trucks At Coronavirus-Hit Funeral Home Spark Outcry
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May 01, 2020 at 10:40PM
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