850-pound Cudahy woman dies; funeral arrangements challenging
CUDAHY, Wis. - Dignity in death, a Cudahy mother is sharing her story after her daughter died.
She suffered from morbid obesity and, because of her weight, getting her the proper funeral arrangements was nearly impossible.
Carolyn Alverio's daughter, Cassandra Ortiz, passed away a week ago.
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"Beautiful soul," Alverio said. "Contagious laughter."
Cassandra Ortiz
But remembering the light she brought to this home was clouded by what happened there after she died.
"I don’t wish what we are going through – I don’t wish that on anybody," she said. "There’s not a funeral home that would take her."
The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner said Ortiz weighed 850 pounds.
Alverio said it took around 12 hours to get her daughter out of the home. She said because of her weight, no one had the capacity to handle the case.
"To walk in that room and just keep seeing her there, and it’s like, oh my god when are they going to get my baby out of here," Alverio said. "They need to get her out of here."
The owner of Church & Chapel Funeral Services, Ted Larsen, wanted to help. The Cudahy fire and police departments, and Larsen’s team, eventually moved Ortiz.
"There were at times 20-30 people in this house trying to help this family, address this situation," he said.
He said there isn’t a crematory in the Milwaukee metro area large enough, and Ortiz had to be transferred to Illinois. But because the fire department was called to a fire, Ortiz remained in the van for safety reasons.
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"Myself and my colleagues were not capable of taking her from the van into – to put her onto any table to accommodate her and this and that," Larsen said.
Alverio urges other families to pre-plan arrangements.
"With her having sat so long in the bed, and having sat so long in the van, even if we wanted to, we couldn’t do a funeral.," she said.
She wants the state of Wisconsin to have a protocol for situations like her daughter's, so no family has to deal with a challenge during an already difficult time.
"Something’s got to be put in place,"Alverio said.