Workers’ bodies headed home Honduran, state officials prepare paperwork to transfer remains

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The bodies of 10 Honduran workers killed in a van accident last week were to leave in the wee hours this morning on a flight home.

Sending them off from the Augusta State Airport was to be David Hernandez-Caballero, a counselor at the Honduran Embassy in Washington, D.C., who has spent a long week in Maine arranging for the return of his countrymen.

If the plan was on schedule, the bodies were to leave the state about midnight and arrive in Honduras by 4:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time today.

For the last week, Hernandez-Caballero has been a strong shoulder for the families of the 10 Hondurans killed Sept. 12 in the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. He has been responsible for handling the legalities associated with transporting human remains over international borders, but also to help the families deal with their grief and understand the reams of paperwork that follows a workplace accident.

It’s been a sleepless experience for Hernandez-Caballero, and at times emotions have overcome his stoic sense of duty to his country. On Wednesday, he saw nine bodies at one time at a Richmond funeral home. That was too much.

“You can imagine what it’s like, but when you’re in front of nine bodies, how do you not think about their families? I’m thinking I’m doing something here because they’re starting a journey to peace with their families.”

What made it even more difficult for him to keep his emotions in check was the arrival in Augusta on Wednesday afternoon of four sons of one of the victims, who were to fly home with their father. Like their father, the sons were all foreign workers in the United States to either plant or thin trees on forestry land.

For the sons to return to Honduras, they needed special permits from the Immigration and Naturalization Service to leave and then re-enter the country at a later date. Those were secured.

And then Hernandez-Caballero and Antonieta Maximo, the consulate general of Honduras, worked until 2:30 a.m. Thursday to process and sign off on all the paperwork required to transport human remains out of the country. That process usually takes about three days, but it was completed in one because Maximo flew to Maine from New York City to expedite the process.

“It’s not easy,” Hernandez-Caballero said. “But it’s something that needs to be done.”

Yet on Thursday, a couple of hours before wooden crates containing the caskets of the 10 men were to be transported from Kincer Funeral Home to the airport, Hernandez-Caballero acknowledged that his thoughts have been on his own family.

When he left home Sept. 12, his son had a bad cold, and he expected to go home after work that night to help his wife care for him.

Once at the Embassy, Hernandez-Caballero learned of the accident and was given instructions from his government to travel to Maine and secure the safe return of the 10 Hondurans.

Also killed in the state’s worst traffic accident were four Guatemalans who were part of a 15-man crew thinning trees on private forest land in the Allagash.

At 8 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 12, the van in which the men were riding plunged off John’s Bridge into 15 feet of water. Maine State Police say speed in excess of 50 mph on an unpaved logging road was the cause of the accident. The Dodge 15-passenger van blew a tire, fishtailed, and went over the rail-less wooden bridge.

There was only one survivor, who got out of the van through a back window. His 14 friends died by drowning. The Guatemalans should be home by Tuesday, according to an Augusta funeral home handling the arrangements.

Around 12:30 a.m. the day after the accident, Hernandez-Caballero left Washington, D.C., en route to Augusta and the State Medical Examiner’s Office to begin the long, extensive process of getting everything in order for the victims’ return home. First the bodies needed to be identified and then their families found and notified of the deaths.

After the notifications, which took all weekend to complete, came the paperwork. The families were asked to provide lists of dependents so that workers’ compensation claims could be filed. Death certificates had to be processed, and Augusta area funeral homes were called for quotes on how much it would cost to prepare the bodies for transportation and burial in accordance with international codes. Then air travel for the bodies had to be arranged.

Most commercial airlines have limits as to how many human remains they will carry at one time, and Hernandez-Caballero received strict orders from President Ricardo Maduro to get all the men home at the same time and not to stretch it out over a week’s time.

“That was the main instruction I received from the president: to get them home to their families not by two, not by three, but 10 at a time,” Hernandez-Caballero said. “And I accomplished that.”

An Air Florida plane was chartered late Wednesday, but its arrival in Maine to pick up the bodies was questionable for most of the day Thursday. Tropical Storm Isidore was situated south of Cuba most of the day and heading toward Cuba and southern Florida. The flight Thursday night was scheduled for a Florida refueling, and it was uncertain whether the storm would prevent it from taking off afterward for Honduras.

Hernandez-Caballero and Maximo decided to proceed anyway. Sending the bodies on the way would probably ease some of the pain of family members waiting in Honduras.

Chuck Kincer, owner of Kincer Funeral Home, said he was impressed with Hernandez-Caballero’s steadfastness and determination. Kincer, like Hernandez-Caballero, said it’s been difficult to “see mass tragedy from one community.”

“David’s been absolutely wonderful,” Kincer said. “He’s represented his country very well. I have a lot of respect for that.”

But Hernandez-Caballero said he has the utmost respect for the people in Maine, especially the State Medical Examiner’s Office, the Department of Labor, Kincer Funeral Home and others who have assisted him this past week.

“All the people here in the state of Maine have been so helpful, so kind,” Hernandez-Caballero said.

Tonight, Hernandez-Caballero anticipates being home in Washington, D.C., to tuck into bed his 10-month-old son, Edgardo, and to hug his wife, Xochitl.

“I miss them,” Hernandez-Caballero said. “I’m just thinking that tomorrow I’ll be with them. I think he’s missing me. We have a routine, and I’m the one to tuck him in at night.”