Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

A hearse be­long­ing to Den­nie’s Fu­ner­al Home caught afire while car­ry­ing a body to his fu­ner­al along the North Coast Road yes­ter­day.

It was on its way to the fu­ner­al of Cyril Valen­tine in Las Cuevas due to start at 3 pm.

Valen­tine was to be buried at the La Fil­lette Cemetary.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port of­fi­cers from the San Juan Fire Sta­tion re­ceived a re­port at 1 pm that the hearse was on fire in the vicin­i­ty of Mara­cas.

By the time the fire ap­pli­ances got to the scene, the hearse was en­gulfed in the flames.

When it was ex­tin­guished the ve­hi­cle was de­stroyed and the cas­ket bear­ing Valen­tine’s body was said to be scorched.

Po­lice said the two at­ten­dees who were in the hearse car­ry­ing Valen­tine’s body were able to ex­it the hearse in time when they first saw the smoke and be­fore it burst in­to flames.

Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia, Tyler Den­nie, of Den­nie’s Fu­ner­al Home, con­firmed that the hearse was theirs but did not com­ment fur­ther on it. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Valen­tine’s rel­a­tives, de­spite what had hap­pened, de­cid­ed that they still want­ed to pro­ceed with the fu­ner­al as planned.

The fu­ner­al home pro­vid­ed a re­place­ment cof­fin and the fu­ner­al was able to go on.

A fe­male rel­a­tive who spoke at the fu­ner­al at its start said: “To­day is a sad day es­pe­cial­ly what hap­pened ear­li­er but let by­gones be by­gones.”

She did not pro­ceed to men­tion any­thing fur­ther but car­ried on with the planned pro­gramme.