With the assistance of the Department of Defense: Operation Puerto Rico, extracting a body

Orthodox businessman from Manchester, who lived recently in New York, died in Puerto Rico and his body was buried after two weeks of international lobbying, with the assistance of the Department of Defense and the Mitaskim organization.

The drama began when Mr Reid, Orthodox businessman from Manchester who was on a business trip in Puerto Rico, felt ill while in his hotel room. Reid called an ambulance which arrived and found him in a difficult situation; the paramedic tried to perform CPR without success, and was pronounced dead on the spot.

Puerto Rico law provides that a person who died outside the hospital - must undergo an autopsy. Meanwhile, police tried to locate the family of Reid, and news of his death reached the family. The latter rushed to contact the Mitaskim organization in Manchester, who referred it to the main branch in the U.S.

Mitaskim organization in the U.S., trained in such cases, contacted Rabbi Mendel Zarchi and Rabbi Levi Stein - Chabad Puerto Rico, who tried to prevent the autopsy - but without success. At this point it was decided that the family of the deceased will appoint the rabbis as authorized representatives of the deceased, to facilitate bureaucratic procedures, and allow the identification of the deceased.
But even after the identification of the deceased, authorities still insisted on performing an autopsy. In an attempt to avoid desecration of the dead, Mitaskim turned to the activist Avraham Eisner, who had friendly relations with the U.S. Defense Ministry director, personally addressed to his friend - Puerto Rico's police chief, and introduced him to the medical records of the deceased, and noted the fact that according to chief paramedic he reached the room of the deceased while alive, the police chief confirmed the release of the body without autopsy.

It turns out that this has not ended the drama, when Chabad emissaries learned that the body was released - they discovered that the family of the deceased wants to bury him in Manchester. Yet according to the laws of England, a body that comes from Puerto Rico for burial - should be embalmed. Attempt to violate the law failed and the solution were to send the deceased to New York and from there to Manchester. Thus, after the tribulations and transformations which lasted two weeks - the deceased was finally brought for a Jewish burial.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!