Total Shock!

I came across a story that I had to write about. It was not in one of the recommended newspapers. So I did a little research and found this same story printed in the New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/nyregion/24hart.html.  It is one of absolute horror. Something so shocking that my girlfriend and I both felt our jaws drop to the ground.

This is a story about Hart Island. A seven minute boat ride from New York City. This is where 800,000 bodies have been buried since 1869. This is not a misprint. Most of those buried were babies or infants as well as people with no names, no identities, or no family. We are not talking about Nazi Germany. We are talking about modern day American culture.

Until approximately 1991, all of this information was kept secret. A woman named Melinda Hunt went on a fact-finding mission by submitting a Freedom of Information request to have any kept records of those buried released to the American public. She has since been helping many families locate friends and relatives who seemed to have fallen off the planet and were never were heard from again.

This raises so many questions about our society. Funding is surely one of the top reasons along with proximity and having no one to claim the dead bodies. Will we find another solution or continue to dump bodies there for centuries to come?