One of my most interesting removals
by Mortuary Transport Expert ~ April 2nd, 2008. Filed under: Removal Stories.There was one week where we had to do a removal from a cruise ship. It was kind of unexpected, to say the least.
I’m assuming someone from the family of the decedent just went to the phone book and started near the top. We had around half of the funeral homes as clients in San Francisco at the time, so our odds were favorable to get the job. We needed to be there by around 10 AM.
One of the biggest concerns for the cruise ship was that they didn’t want the other passengers seeing what was going on. So, we drove up to the dock , which was fairly close to the bay bridge, told security guards who we were, and they directed us to the ramp. Most of the guests had disembarked to sight see, but they put some movable fences in the way of people who were still standing around.
My daughter and I were the main employees of my company at the time, so we went up the ramp to the elevators. We were of course escorted the whole way, and went into the belly of the ship, I believe it was about 4 levels down, to the hospital or clinic area of the ship.
We were led to an ice box morgue that was around a foot off the ground, lowered our gurney, pulled the decedent onto the gurney strapped her in and covered her, then went in reverse back to our van. We were in and out fairly quickly, and at least we could say we’d been on a cruise ship.
That was on a Monday or Tuesday.
Later that week, we got called, and I was just to transport and be assisted by one of the top funeral directors of another funeral home for ANOTHER cruise ship on Thursday morning.
We had to be at the ship at 6AM, but they weren’t ready for us for a couple hours. They too wanted to keep the guests from seeing what was going on.
The plan was for them to take my gurney, and even though they’d be clueless how to use the gurney, they would strap the body on and move it up the conveyer belt for the luggage onto the dock.
Well, the ship was riding too low, and they couldn’t even get the convery belt out onto the dock for the luggage, let alone my gurney with a body on it, properly strapped and covered.
Eventually they decided it was best to let us take the gurney up the ramp and to the elevators, etc. I’d done all this just a few days earlier, so I was ready for the same routine. The funeral director with me was quite a bit older, I’ll say, and his removal days had been at least 10-15 years in the past. I took charge of the removal since I knew my equipment. I used Junkin gurneys, and he was used to Ferno.
We got in and out fine, my funeral director was pleased with the quality of the removal, but I was more bemused by the fact that I’d been on a cruise ship not once, but twice in one week.
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