The dead body of a 100-year-old Army veteran was reportedly inhumanely left naked and uncovered for three hours, in full public display in a driveway, by strained first responders in Albuquerque, New Mexico, gaining the widow's ire and condemnation.
June Wilson, the wife of the deceased centenarian veteran Norman Wilson, said that her husband collapsed inside of their home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, some two weeks ago, prompting her to alert authorities, reported KRQE.
“I called 911 and I said ‘my husband is dead,'” Wilson said. Following the elderly woman's distressed call, first responders from Albuquerque Fire Rescue reportedly arrived at the scene and relocated the unconscious Norman to the pavement on the driveway outside the home. They then removed his clothing and attempted Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
"They cut his clothes off,” Wilson said. “He had a t-shirt on and a pair of jeans on and he was nude. Completely nude, from head to toe.”
The efforts to revive Norman using CPR went unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The widow Wilson said that after a police officer arrived at the home, the firefighters left the spot, leaving her husband's naked corpse in the driveway uncovered, in full view of the neighbors and the public, for nearly three hours, according to Eminetra.
"There was a cop here who said the chaplain was on his way but they let my husband sit there for two and a half hours nude and that was wrong,” she said. “That was a disgrace to him. It was a disgrace to me.”
Wilson said that eventually, ants started crawling over her husband's lifeless dead body. She decided to cover her husband's body with a blanket as she was unable to stand by and watch any longer.
According to a call sheet from the police, it took almost three hours after the initial 911 call for the body to be taken away. Police reportedly defended the negligence saying that the department was heavily loaded with several calls for first responders that day, thereby causing delays with the chaplain and medical investigators arriving on the scene.
Wilson said that regardless of the protocols, the incident was extremely "heartbreaking" and "tragic" for her.
"I mean, in front of my house on the concrete on the dirt. That, that’s wrong, that’s inhumane," she said.
Albuquerque Fire Rescue spokesman Tom Ruiz denies negligence in the unfortunate event, saying that officials try to preserve as much evidence as possible for police and medical workers when there's an unattended death, the U.S Sun reported.
"And sometimes that does require for that person to be left uncovered," Ruiz said.
Albuquerque Police Department (APD) also said the police officers and their chaplain were very respectful and helpful to the old woman, even making phone calls for her to family members.
Wilson has created a small memorial to her husband outside her home's walkway consisting of a small cross and a bouquet of flowers.
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