"The World is Watching" - Foundation Partners Brand Ambassador Assists NYC

Deon Strommer, former mortuary owner in Oregon and current Brand Ambassador for Foundation Partners Group, has worked behind-the-scenes at large-scale, mass-casualty disasters for the past 20 years. A member of the Disaster Mortuary Operations Team (DMORT), Deon is part of the federally-organized group of funeral directors, medical examiners, pathologists, finger print specialists, forensic odontologists and other experts dispatched to identify decedents and return their remains to their families in a dignified, respectful manner. Working under local authorities, he served several five-week deployments over seven months in New Orleans after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, travelled to Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria and, most recently, flew across the country to care for victims and support survivors of COVID-19. Deon shares his most recent experience in the interview below.

When and where were you deployed in response to COVID-19?

While the primary mission of DMORT is to forensically identify the dead, my deployment and responsibilities during the pandemic were very different than my previous assignments. I was first deployed on February 1st to California’s Travis Air Force Base to assist with the repatriation of U.S. citizens from Wuhan, China and then to process 400 American passengers exposed to the coronavirus on a cruise ship returning from Japan. I was assigned to screening, monitoring and quarantining those individuals. In March, I moved to Dobbins Air Force Base in Georgia to offer similar assistance to passengers from other cruise ships. Part of my job was running the flight line as they arrived at the bases. I welcomed them home and they we so grateful to be back on U.S. soil. My final coronavirus assignment was in New York City, where we assisted the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner with an unprecedented number of COVID-19 decedents.

Did you have any concerns about working so closely with COVID-19 patients?

To assist people in need is rewarding. That's why I got into the death care industry - to help and serve in a unique way. I worked closely with CDC doctors and have complete trust in their guidelines to the public. While working with returning American citizens, I was in physical contact with over 1,500 potential carriers – taking the elderly by the arm and assisting them down many flights of stairs, and even carrying 70 children. Of course, my crew and I wore Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and followed procedures for donning and doffing it – washing and sanitizing as we went. About 400 of those passengers become sick with the coronavirus, yet my crew and I remained healthy. In the death care industry, we are suited for this kind of work; we understand and know how to work with scared, upset and emotional people. We also understand blood and airborne pathogens and know how to properly wear PPE. If we all continue to follow CDC protocols and guidelines, we can and will remain safe.

What were the chief challenges you and your team faced in New York City?

Supporting the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in New York City was a job like no other. I was Morgue Operations Manager on a two-week assignment that stretched to six weeks. When we arrived in early April, the City’s existing morgue facilities were already stretched well beyond their limits. The initial challenge was to set up facilities to house the overflow and the thousands of COVID decedents expected during April. The world was watching so he had to get his right. We divided the main DMORT team into three small teams to cover three borough morgues in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. I led the Queens team, which was embedded with the military’s Decedent Affairs Unit. Our teams worked round-the-clock in 12-hour shifts. The scale of the death toll was staggering and I was so impressed with the young National Guard troops who did the heavy lifting for us. It takes bodies to move bodies, as they say, but these young men and women had never been around anything like this. And there were lab techs on-site, many of whom had never seen a dead body. Even the Mortuary Affairs Officers had to take a knee now and then. No one has ever seen anything like this. We eventually set up a large facility on a Brooklyn pier to freeze decedents until the proper arrangements could be made.

What did you learn from this experience?

This experience has reinforced my faith in the power of the human spirit to persevere and overcome obstacles. It also made me appreciate the human connections that can be made during a time of crisis. While in New York, we were housed in hotels. We came home dog-tired every evening and had to venture out for take-out dinners. One of the cruise families I had assisted on the West Coast was from New York City. Somehow they tracked me down and brought me ready-to-eat, homemade meals every night for a week. Now that’s very special. I’ll never forget their simple act of kindness and gratitude.

I also was impressed with the support I received from Foundation Partners Group, which was behind my work on the DMORT team 100 percent. They are equally supportive of my plans to visit all 36 counties in my home state of Oregon to share my New York experience with local Office of Emergency Management personnel and National Guard teams so they can be better prepared for the next major incident.