A former employee has accused the business, National Funeral Home, in Fall Church, of mishandling corpses, including those of veterans. National is owned by Service Corporation international, the world's largest provider of funeral services.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A funeral home that helps handle veterans awaiting burial at Arlington National Cemetery left corpses in an unrefrigerated garage, hallways and on makeshift gurneys, according to a former embalmer who has given his photographs and notes to authorities, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
"It was disturbing and disrespectful and unethical," said Steven Napper, a retired Maryland trooper who worked at the funeral home for nine months. "I never could have imagined what I saw there or the things we were asked to do."
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SCI, of course, denies Mr. Napper's accusations.
"Our company is committed to treating all human remains with the utmost dignity and respect at all times," he said.
Photos in a video on the Post Web site show several coffins stacked on a rack in what Napper said was an unrefrigerated garage. Another photo shows a body wrapped in a white sheet on top of a cardboard box.
However, this is not the first occasion that SBA has found itself in trouble. In 2003 they were fined $100 million for practices in FL.
The article doesn't just detail accusations of disrespectful handling of bodies, but of outrageously unsanitary conditions. One man, who accompanied his father's body to the facility, described, unrefrigerated corpses and urine and feces all over the floor.
This is likely to become a big scandal. And it should.
Here's the link.
http://www.google.com/...