Funeral director remembers attacks

SHERMAN – As a funeral director, Tony Bowers deals with death on a regular basis.

As a member of a Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team for 13 years, he has been involved with large-scale disasters such as the Egypt Air crash in October 1999 that killed 217 people and American Airlines Flight 587 that crashed in November 2001 in Queens, N.Y., killing 260.

DMORT is a team of morticians who respond to large-scale disasters to help with body identification, embalming, and returning bodies to families.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Bowers, 43, was one of seven DMORT morticians who headed for the World Trade Center in New York City.

“It was altogether different,” Bowers said of the attacks, comparing them to the plane crashes at which he previously worked.

“Everybody [in New York] was looking for live people; anticipating finding husbands, wives and children. There was a lot of hope.”

Bowers worked for 14 days in New York City, first obtaining personal information from family members and later working with the New York State Medical Examiner’s Office in the city morgue.

“Hardly a week or a day goes by that I don’t think about it,” he said nearly a year after the experience.

“I think about the different things I saw at the morgue; the families and how their lives have been turned right upside down,” he said. “There wouldn’t be a mother cooking dinner or a father bringing home a paycheck.”

The experience also prompted Bowers to work to spend more time with his wife and four children. He sold the monument portion of his business to get the extra time.

“Life is too short,” he said. “My kids are growing up around me. If I’m not doing a funeral, I’d like to have a day off” to be with them.

He said his absence right after the attacks also had an impact on his family.

“Dad wasn’t there,” he said. “In this situation, you didn’t know what was going to happen next. There could have been another attack. That was a different feeling.

“I don’t think we’ll ever be the same,” he said, speaking about the United States in general. “Every week, every day, something comes up to remind us.”

There was a positive side to the experience, Bowers said.

“I made a lot of good friendships working down there,” he said, adding that the shared experience drew everyone from a wide range of occupations closer together.

“I’m still in touch with most of the people,” he said, adding that his family has been invited to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. He also expects many of the people he met will come to Maine for a visit.