‘Bodies all over the place’

In the wake of Hurricane Melissa’s devastation, the air in Westmoreland hung heavy with dust and debris as mortician Dywite Spence began a grim journey – retrieving the bodies of those the storm had claimed.

Spence has been in the funeral profession for 14 years, but nothing, he said, could have prepared him for what he witnessed after the Category 5 hurricane tore across Jamaica’s western end.

“They have a lot of problem. Bodies all about all over the place,” he said wearily, describing the scenes he encountered in community after community since late Wednesday, a day after Melissa’s passage.

The storm carved a direct path over the parish, leaving families shattered and entire communities in mourning.

Spence had been on duty since Sunday but took shelter before Melissa made landfall near New Hope on Tuesday. When the winds subsided, he went straight to work.

“House drop down. Trees drop down. Container house drop down on them, pregnant body, everybody. We had to go for them in gutters, hills, everywhere,” he told The Sunday Gleaner, struggling to formulate his thoughts.

Sipping from a cup quarter-way filled, he sat flat on the ground with his back rested against a column at the entrance of Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department.

It was just after 3 a.m. Thursday and he had only then returned from a retrieval mission with six bodies from various communities.

18-year-old pregnant woman

It took him 10 hours, he estimated, mentioning that he left to retrieve the first body at approximately 4 p.m. Wednesday and only got to the hospital around 2 a.m.

One of the victims, an 18-year-old woman, was eight months pregnant.

Her house in Waterworks, Petersfield, had buckled under the pressure of the hurricane, killing her and her unborn child.

“Every body I carry in now house drop down on them. All of them. A man try fi shelter in a container but it go to gutter with him. It blow away with him in it.

“A next man, his house blow down and he leave to go [shelter] in family member house and get heart attack and died,” said Spence, who repeatedly asked what time it was.

Even as he spoke, a new report came in: 11 bodies had been found in Darliston, eastern Westmoreland. Police requested his help to retrieve them but warned that fallen trees and live wires blocked the roads. It was unclear if all 11 deaths were hurricane-related.

Seasoned in the geography of the parish, he said he and his team would attempt the task though hour-long trips had doubled and tripled.

“We know all the crevice and corners. We don’t have to use a phone help. We use memory and know where to go. No calls going out right now so police just drive to the parlour and tell us and we follow the police and go for them,” he said.

Melissa is the first storm of its kind the mortician said he had experienced and the most brutal conditions he has had to operate under.

“This is the first one, man. This terrible and cold. We feel it in this one. We feel it in every crevice and corner. The family member dem feel it a lot. They cry; they feel it a lot. And some of them we go for, there’s no family member to see, just them. Some that we bring in, there was no one around them. Only doctors pronounce them and we going bring them to Doyleys’ [Funeral Home],” said Spence.

Despite exhaustion, Spence told The Sunday Gleaner there was little time to rest.

“Right now we affi go home go bathe, eat, then look fi Darliston road and we can’t sleep because we affi go up a Cornwall Mountain and find out where the other pregnant girl is who dead – another one,” he said.

“We can’t stop doing this until the roads clear up and everything normal and we hear news and folks alright and know what is going on. Otherwise we just have to just drive around; put gas in the tank and drive around and hunt the lanes and see what’s going on,” he said.

On Saturday, the official death toll from the hurricane rose to 28, with the authorities estimating that the figure could be even higher.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com