Nagima Alzhan, right here along with her son Aidar BerlinBaye, mentioned Turkish Airways misplaced the stays of her husband Serik Berlinbayev.
J.C.Rice
Two New York households endured the identical ghoulish nightmare when the our bodies of their deceased family members had been misplaced, based on lawsuits.
One Bronx household has accused Turkish Airways of shedding the stays of their patriarch on the way in which to his funeral in Kazakhstan, whereas a Brooklyn clan costs their useless mom’s physique was 11 days late to companies in Puerto Rico.
“I can't discuss this with out tears in my eye,” mentioned Nagima Alzhan 63, whose husband Serik Berlinbayev died in a Bronx hospital in December 2019 from liver issues.
Nagima had immigrated to the USA in 2002 after profitable a lottery for a inexperienced card, studying English and dealing her approach as much as develop into a registered nurse. Berlinbayev, who was a authorities official of their native Kazakhstan, joined her right here in 2015, she mentioned.
“I used to be working two jobs. He was taking good care of us,” she mentioned of her husband of 35 years.
When he died, Nagima paid $15,000 to a neighborhood funeral director to embalm the stays and organize transport to their homeland, so Berlinbayev may have a funeral and be buried inside seven days of his loss of life, as per Muslim customized.
His physique was placed on a flight out of Kennedy Airport on Dec. 19, 2019, and anticipated to reach in Kazakhstan on Dec. 21, when about 100 folks had been as a consequence of attend the funeral.
However the stays didn’t present up.
“Nobody was selecting up the cellphone,” she recalled. “At that second, we had been simply crying. It was horrible. It’s not a bit of, I don’t know, one thing — it’s human. It’s unbelievable what we went via.”
Berlinbayev’s physique, which had been misplaced in Istanbul, was lastly positioned however not till the household was pressured to interrupt the seven-day customized. Turkish Airways didn’t apologize, she added. Nagima is looking for unspecified damages in her Bronx Supreme Court docket lawsuit in opposition to the airline.
The household of Ana Rivera was additionally traumatized, based on a Brooklyn Supreme Court docket.
Rivera, a married mom of two, died at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Heart on March 31, 2020, from issues of pneumonia. The household employed Paccione Funeral Administrators on Staten Island to assist transport Rivera’s physique by way of American Airways to Puerto Rico, the place it was as a consequence of arrive on April 8, 2020, based on the authorized submitting. However the physique didn’t present up till April 19 — and was decomposing, the household charged within the litigation filed in opposition to Paccione, American Airways and others.
“The legislation places a particular worth on human stays and you'll’t deal with deceased particular person like a bit of bags or a bit of cargo,” mentioned lawyer Mark Seitelman, who represents each households. “It needs to be handled with respect, it needs to be delivered on time to the mourners who're ready to obtain it.”
Turkish Airways didn’t reply to a message looking for remark. American Airways mentioned it might assessment the allegations.
Rocco Paccione, proprietor of the Staten Island funeral house, famous that Rivera’s loss of life got here as deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic put unbelievable pressure on sources all through the well being care and funeral industries within the 5 boroughs.
“We got a set of directions. We adopted our directions and Ms. Rivera bought house,” he mentioned, declining additional touch upon the pending litigation.
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