From across the country have descended on new york city over the past several weeks to help out...as hundreds continue to die each day from the coronavirus.
News channel two's gary liberatore spoke with a funeral director from our area who talks about the emotional toll this takes on all who have come to help.
(tc : 57:51 - nat of beginning of facetime call...."hey there dan you are dressed up professionally for this interview....a little different than usual...."
Dan enea...a funeral director from little falls just spent 17 days down in new york city helping out the overwhelmed medical examiner's office.
He's now quarentined in a hotel just outside of new york city for 14 days before he can return home.
Tc : 59:13 "i went with a group, but i've also deployed within the past, i went to haiti with, i went to new orleans with so it was the same group."
Enea says nothing could have ever prepared him for what he saw...with hundreds of people dying in the city each day... tc : 03:17 "we assisted in going to peoples homes and taking people out of their homes and other facilities.
Every time we went out we had military with us which was a huge help which was interesting because a lot of these military people were young men and women who have never seen what we've seen and they struggled with it but we all work together and made it happen."
So many families not being able to say goodbye to their loved ones...then not being able to retrieve their bodies for many days because of the backlog...and finally not being able to hold a gathering for their loved one....the devastation is literally tripled... tc : 01:44 "that's i think the worst part of it gary, is with families not being able to say goodbye in ways that are used to.
Not being able to have the public come in and pay their final leave, that can be devastating for families."
Some of the images we see from down there are horrific but to see it in person is something enea says you just can't imagine...like seeing refrigerated trucks brought in to handle the overflow of bodies.
Tc : 00:29 "they brought those in.
They were a big help but it was just overwhelming.
I believe some funeral homes there we're not even taking new funerals anymore, they were just leaving it to the medical examiner.
We were assisting."
Enea says you from the horrific to the amazing...like this kind of sight... tc : 07:04 "every night at 7 pm there will be people that would go out on their balconies and hit the pans and things like that and share for all the first responders tc : 07:24 "it's sent chills down my spine.
It cheered me up definitely."
Afetr quarentining...and coming home, enea says he may go back down to help again in the coming weeks if needed.
Gary liberatore, news channel 2.
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