So, I'm off to the British Virgin Islands to identify my Father-In-Law's body

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

…and that surely ranks as one of the most unlikely sentences I’ve ever written.

One week ago today, FIL passed away of an apparent heart attack. He was 70.
He was also discourteous enough to do this while snorkeling in international waters off the coast of the Island of Tortola.

This means that there must be an official investigation and an autopsy before his remains can be released to the family. And before that can begin, his body must be officially identified in the presence of the Pathologist who will perform the autopsy.

This is where things get weird. He was traveling with a lady-friend and some other friends of theirs. While not a relative, folks from the BVI government and US embassy had been confident that she would be able to act in the family’s stead and provide the ID. But the final decision on this rests with the Pathologist on duty. And there was no Pathologist on the island at the time. He usually comes on Sundays, they said. *But not every Sunday. We don’t know if he’ll be here this week or not. * FIL’s girlfriend was scheduled to go home on Sunday, but she decided to extend her trip and wait for the Pathologist. Who did not come on Sunday.

We can get another Pathologist to come over from Barbados, they said then. Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest. On Tuesday, they announced that he would be there Friday. But girlfriend has to go home. We don’t blame her. She’s been fantastic throughout all of this and already extended her stay under very bad circumstances. We couldn’t expect her to wait indefinitely.

So it now falls to my wife as next of kin (as opposed to her sister who has a 9-year-old kid and no passport) to go down and do what needs to be done. And I’ll be damned if I’m letting her go through that alone, so we’re both getting on a plane tomorrow morning. We actually have a meeting scheduled *with a specific time *on Friday, so that’s a good sign that the guy will actually show up. But things definitely work on “Island Time” there, and I can’t say I’ll be terribly surprised if we end up staying for several extra days as well. We shall see. I probably won’t be back on SDMB until Monday at the earliest, so I’ll post an update when I can.

You can imagine how trying these circumstances have been, on top of the shock of his unexpected death. But my wife has been a trouper; she’s been in TCB mode for an entire week now. I’m waiting for the crash.

2

I’m very sorry for your loss, and your wife’s loss.

But I gotta say, dying while snorkeling with new girlfriend at the age of 70, doesn’t seem so bad. I hope everything goes smoothly and you are able to transport your FIL’s body home soon.

3

That is certainly a bizarre circumstance that would be hard to predict. Life takes weird turns.

4

Unlikely sentence indeed! But I’d read that book, just sayin’!

Sorry for your loss I hope things go smoothly for you both for your journey.

5

Man that’s actually the saddest addendum to “I’m off to the British Virgin Islands” I’ve ever heard.

Good luck, I hope it goes smoothly.

6

You’d think they could get the gf to sign off on an identification before she left and then just call you in once the pathologist showed up if he felt it was necessary (which presumably he wouldn’t). Or alternatively just have them send pictures of the deceased to a morgue in the US and have you make the identification in the presence of a notary or something here. Having you schlep all the way to the VI seems pretty needless given there doesn’t seem to be any real ambiguity in the identity of the deceased.

But in any case, sorry for your loss. Sounds like your FIL at least went out on a high note.

7

My sympathies. May your traveling headaches be as few as reasonably practical.
There was a time when every time my grandmother traveled, my uncle braced himself for the need to go retrieve her.

(In fact, I went to Africa with her to help prevent such an occurrence–in practice, my presence decreased the likelihood of her wandering off, and increased the likelihood of her being ready for the bus when the group was ready to leave . . . I only lost her twice).

Of course, given what her last couple of years were like (Dementia), one does wonder whether death in a foreign country would actually have been worse . . .

8

I’ve spent a bit of time in the Virgin Islands and the islanders do operate on a different timetable than we do. They are constantly befuddled why we’re annoyed when the sign (at the car rental company, for instance) says that they’ll return at 12:00, and they mosey in at, oh, 12:18.

I also read that USVI government employees get something like 25 holidays per year. That is in addition to their vacation. (Not sure it’s the same for the BVI employees.) It’s a wonder they EVER show up for work.

Finally, I just wanted to say that while I’m sorry about your FIL’s passing and the inconvenience it is causing you, I’m happy for him that he was snorkeling in the Caribbean Sea instead of in a hospital bed. As these things go, it’s not a bad way to go.

9

That’s terrible. I don’t understand why the girlfriend couldn’t swear to his identity before she left the country. They have lawyers and notary types in BVI, don’t they? What if none of his next of kin had passports?

I’m sorry the mess is making a difficult time that much harder, and I’m sorry for your family’s loss. I hope the rest of the ordeal is without further hiccups.

10

Yea, I was wondering about this as well. Even if the State Dept. expedites passports for people in this situation, I imagine there are a lot of folks who simply can’t afford to pay however many thousands of dollars it takes to get last minute plane tickets to and from the VIs, plus pay for accommodations once there, plus the cost of missing work. Especially since they’re also going to need to then absorb the cost of transporting the body back and paying for a funeral.

11

I see a screenplay. You arrive, prepared to make an identification. Only it most certainly is not him! And there is an attempt on your life at the airport. I’m seeing Matt Damon in the lead role.

Hope your trip goes smoothly.

12

I’m sorry to hear about your loss Wheelz. I hope the trip goes smoothly.

For those wondering why the girlfriend couldn’t swear to his identity before she left, note that **Wheelz **reports that by law, the identification must take place in the Pathologist’s presence. You’d think they’d have some exception for all the vacationers, but apparently they don’t.

13

We’re back. Things went about as smoothly as we could have hoped and we did what we needed to do. I can’t imagine having to go through it without the assistance of Albert, a representative of the BVI Board of Tourism. His job is to help tourists and families of tourists who have emergencies when traveling there, and he is damn good at his job. Albert has been our single point of contact throughout this ordeal and has coordinated with all the necessary officials, the hospital, the police, and so forth. This would have been an absolute nightmare to navigate on our own.

Yep, we tried to find a way around it, and I can’t speak to why it had to be that way, but a verbal identification had to be made in the physical presence of both the Pathologist (doctor performing the autopsy) and Coroner (local official). Getting the Pathologist to Tortola was the sticking point. There are apparently 2 of them in the entire Caribbean; I may or may not be exaggerating. They were finally able to get one there on Friday – 9 days after FIL’s death.

So we got in Thursday night and had an appointment at the hospital for noon on Friday. Albert picked us up and drove us to the hospital at the appointed time, where neither the Pathologist nor the Coroner was waiting for us. Someone had gone to pick up the Pathologist at the airport but he wasn’t there. Albert called to verify that he was on the plane and he was. But it seems he didn’t know someone was picking him up. Or something, I dunno. Not sure how he ended up getting to the hospital, but he got there, about an hour late.

But the Coroner still wasn’t there anyway. See, the Coroner is also a judge, and she was held up at the courthouse hearing a case. We were able to meet with the Pathologist for a few minutes to answer some questions about FIL’s medical history, but then all we could do was wait for the Coroner.

She finally arrived about another hour later. At last! The stars were aligned. All the people who needed to be there were there.

It most certainly was him, after all. Oddly purplish-red in color, and with his hair almost comically disheveled, but it was unmistakably him. There was remarkably little drama in this scene. No drawer pulled open, no sheet thrown back off his face; we just walked into a room and there he was, lying on a table. My wife said, yes, that’s my father and said his name, and then we all turned around and walked out. All that for about 20 seconds in the room. My wife was OK with it; she said her imagination was much worse than the reality, and she felt a huge weight lift off her when it was over.

So now the autopsy report has to be filed, whatever agencies need to sign off on everything, and his body will be sent to San Juan for cremation, and then the ashes shipped home to Florida. Best case scenario, we’ll have him back in the US by the end of the month, but that’s not a given. At least the process is underway.

I certainly agree. He was having a wonderful time on this trip. He’d been out snorkeling the 3 previous days and seemed to be feeling fine until he suddenly could not catch his breath in the water. His girlfriend managed to lift him up onto a buoy when he just went limp. He definitely didn’t drown and he didn’t linger in pain. FIL’s mother suffered from dementia for many years before she passed away, and he was terrified of ending up like her. He was beginning to show some early signs. So at least he didn’t have to go through that. So yeah, there are certainly worse ways to go out.

On the other hand, he had just spent the last 6 1/2 years and most of his retirement caring for his wife as she slowly withered away and died from stomach cancer in December. We are sure he stayed faithful to her until the end, but he can’t be faulted for moving on quickly with his new companion. She made him happy. He was still very young at heart and extremely social. There was more he wanted to do and by all indications he had some good years left in him. So that sucks.

C’est la vie, I suppose. None of us knows how much time we have left, so treasure your life while you can. And when you die, for god’s sake, try to do it in your home country!

14

I’m glad to hear everything went smoothly, if slowly. Thank you for posting the update.