Fire chief seeks solution from county and medical examiner

After festering for about 18 months, the issue of who is responsible for transporting bodies from Point Roberts to the mainland might finally be getting the attention it requires.

Point Roberts fire chief Christopher Carleton told the All Point Bulletin March 26 that he had been trying to no avail to get the county or state to get involved after the county medical examiner denied responsibility for the infrequent job of taking people who have died on the Point down to Bellingham.

“It’s a very simple thing,” Carleton said. “We have around 3-6 people die up here each year and in order to transport them through Canada to Bellingham, we have to notify Health Canada in Ottawa that the person did not die of a communicable disease. To do so requires an attestation to that effect and the medical examiner is refusing to provide that,” he said. “He has told us to call the person’s primary care physician. Well, you can’t do that at 2 in the morning.”

The county appointed Dr. Aldo Fusaro as medical examiner (ME) in December 2024.

By state law, medical examiners are required by to assume authority when a person has died from unnatural causes such as murder or a communicable disease.

It follows that if an examiner declines to assume jurisdiction over a corpse then the ME has, in effect, determined that the person did not die from a communicable disease and should be able to provide an attestation to that conclusion.

That supposition was posed to county executive spokesperson Jed Holmes when queried to confirm a March 31 meeting between the fire chief and the executive. He replied that he had passed the suggestion to the ME to evaluate.

“We are very interested in a solution,” he added.