I guess you can't keep a good man down!
I am really pushing it tonight...
Posted on 09/14/2010 11:20:00 PM PDT by ConservativeStatement
FORT LAUDERDALE — A burial in his beloved sea was the wish of Daniel Scott Lasky, who died last week at his home in Hickory, N.C.
But his family's efforts to comply with that wish led to a fisherman's startling discovery and sent homicide investigators scrambling to solve the mystery of a body at sea.
Lasky, a 48-year-old grocery worker, died of Lou Gehrig's disease on Sept. 8. The next day his family packed his body in dry ice, loaded it into a van and drove to Fort Lauderdale, where Lasky once vacationed. After stopping overnight in Daytona Beach, the family and Lasky's remains arrived in Fort Lauderdale on Friday.
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
I guess you can't keep a good man down!
I am really pushing it tonight...
Aren’t there laws about disposing bodies? Typically, one requesting burial at sea is cremated first and then has their ashes scattered. Unless, of course, their burial at sea was arranged by the Mob. Then cement shoes are provided the deceased at no extra charge.
The Coast Guard is consulting with the EPA's regional administrator in the Lasky case, Collins said. He couldn't immediately say if any burial regulations were violated.
They're going to find a way to charge the grieving family with something if they have to go to Congress and get a law passed with a retroactive clause in it. /s
This is from the article:
State and federal protocols demand the body be in a coffin of noncorrosive metal that weighs four times the individual’s body weight, said Gary Collins, burial at sea coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency’s southeastern district in Atlanta.
The coffin also must be secured top, bottom and lengthwise. “We recommend they use stainless steel chains,” Collins said. “The idea is to make sure it keeps that casket closed … This has happened before, where the lids pop open.”
The coffin also must have at least six 2-inch holes drilled in its lid and base. It can be sunk no closer than three miles from shore in international waters of at least 600 feet. Because of a casket’s weight, burials at sea typically require a crane-equipped boat.
I was thinking maybe his name was *BOB*
Make sure the “sinking devices” are Coast Guard Approved.
Interesting.
“After stopping overnight in Daytona Beach....”
Well - that raises some questions and also some interesting mental images!
They add a shell.
The charter boat captain should have known the rules or looked them up. I looked into having my ashes (when I die) put into a cement ring that they lower to a reef which they’re starting somewhere off the coast of NJ. The family thinks I am nuts. However I don’t trust them with my ashes. Sassy maybe as long as the top is welded shut. She didn’t want her grandmother’s urn put with my dad. She liked having her around which upset the brothers greatly. Seems they have a problem with death & she doesn’t. Thankfully.
In a wartime burial at sea, the body is sewn into sackcloth along with heavy weights (normally scrap metal of some sort). Back when sailors still slept in hammocks, they were often sewn into their hammock.
Most wartime burials at sea occur a long way from land in very deep water.
Okay, I’ll bite. Who was Toot?
Judging from the ashes, Toot was huge. :)
Good point. The requirements sound like the result of good lobbying efforts by the funeral industry though.
I was thinking along those lines. Seems like a lot of work to dump a single body into ocean. I'm thinking it would be nothing but bones in less than a week. Wonder what they worry about?
They worry about cases like this one - where because it (apparently) wasn’t done properly, all sorts of resources have been tied up dealing with it.
It can also cost ordinary people, not just the authorities - a fishing boat captain doesn’t appreciate having the entire catch condemned because a body floated into it because somebody else was careless.
“Family members then fished for a spell in his memory.”
Gross. Who could eat a fish knowing it was swimming around a dead body? It’s amazing that no one, including (you would think)a level-headed pastor and other family members, thought that this might be a bad idea.
“Aren’t there laws about disposing bodies?..”
You bet your bottom there are.
Images on TV and in movies about simply dumping someone’s ashes nondescriptly or, in this case, just dumping someone’s unprepared remains into a body of water are completely illegal.
Various reasons........most, obviously, related to public health concerns (spreading disease, sanitation)......some others about customs and common decency.
Exactly. If properly weighted it would. But they want you to buy a $10k corrosion resistant casket and stainless steel chains that will last for decades down there.
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