||| FROM KOMO TV NEWS |||
The Point Roberts Fire Chief says he believes the Whatcom County Medical Examiner is defying a state statute and forcing his firefighters to wait hours to carry dead bodies through two international border crossings, tying up resources in the already small community.
It is just the latest quirky situation involving the small town isolated from the rest of the county by two land crossings, as the Whatcom County Medical Examiner Aldo Fusaro says he has “no jurisdiction” in that part of the county and that it would have “significant liability and cost for the county to have our employees venture up there.”
Carleton recalled how, on now more than one occasion, his volunteer firefighters have had to load a deceased individual into the back of a fire van and attempt to cross the border.
As Carleton tells it, the process has taken seven or eight hours because of the hassle of crossing the border to Delta BC and back down to Blaine, Washington. He says at one point, he was told to “double bag” a body because of concerns over communicable diseases.
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