First responders left a 100-year-old Army veteran's naked dead body uncovered outside his Albuquerque, New Mexico home for three h...
First responders left a 100-year-old Army veteran's naked dead body uncovered outside his Albuquerque, New Mexico home for three hours before coming to retrieve it.
June Wilson said she called 911 two weeks ago to report the death of her husband of 15 years, Norman, but when members of Albuquerque Fire Rescue arrived they moved him to a walkway outside the home and stripped him nude in an attempt to revive him.
Then, they left him there.
Wilson, an Army veteran was 100 years old when he died, and his wife of 15 years, June was his primary caretaker
First responders left the naked body of Norman Wilson outside his New Mexico home for three hours after his wife called 911 to report his death
'They cut his clothes off,' Wilson, who was her husband's primary caretaker, recounted to KRQE. 'He had a t-shirt on and a pair of jeans on and he was nude. Completely nude, from head to toe.'
Firefighters left when a police officer arrived at the scene, she said, but her husband's body remained naked on the walkway for hours in full view of their neighbors.
'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,' Wilson told the station. 'That was a disgrace to him. It was a disgrace to me.'
As she waited, she watched as ants crawled over her husband's body.
June Wilson recounted the humiliating experience, saying she watched as ants started to crawl over her husband's body
Firefighters had left Wilson's body on the walkway outside his home (pictured) for hours
According to police records the body was lying there for three hours, but after around two and a half, Wilson said she covered him with a blanket.
'I mean, in front of my house on the concrete on the dirt,' she said of the scene. 'That, that's wrong, that's inhumane.'
Police and fire officials defended their response, saying a high call volume that night resulted in delays to the chaplain and medical investigators arriving on the scene.
Albuquerque fire and police officials defended their response, saying a high call volume that night resulted in delays to the chaplain and medical investigators arriving on the scene
'It can be quite complicated and family members are distraught because they witnessed their loved one passing away or discovered their loved one so, it is an extremely difficult scene to handle,' Albuquerque Fire Rescue spokesman Tom Ruiz told KRQE.
Additionally, he said, when a person dies and the body is not found immediately, responders try to preserve as much evidence on the scene as they can for investigators.
'And sometimes that does require for that person to be left uncovered,' he said.
Outside on the walkway, June placed flowers and a cross in remembrance of her husband.
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