Dead body left on Zemun sidewalk for hours in broad daylight: People walked around it, had lunch

Photo: Telegraf.rs

A middle-aged man passed away suddenly while he was waiting for an order in front of a kebab grill on Monday afternoon, in Gospodska Street in central Zemun, a Belgrade municipality. He just grabbed his chest and collapsed on the sidewalk. A fellow citizen immediately tried to help and resuscitate him, but unsuccessfully. The man was dead on the spot.

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This scene was very shocking in itself and no one even suspected that it was going to get worse - the body of the unfortunate man was left for hours on the sidewalk in front of the kebab grill. In broad daylight, in one of the busiest streets in Zemun, only partially covered with a smallish sheet.

Since this street is located right next to the Zemun Quay and is otherwise known as a promenade, a large number of people and small children were constantly passing by the deceased man. Fellow citizens were eating, laughing, walking their dogs and babies, children rode bicycles and rollerblades. An ambulance crew had arrived, pronounced the man dead, and then left, while the authorities made a report, and stayed at the scene for a while. Hours passed.

Photo: Telegraf.rs

Surprisingly or not, the body was eventually picked up by a private funeral company at around 8:30 pm.

Exploring this event, we tried to find out who was supposed to remove the body and whether it had to take hours for a private undertaker to do so. Belgrade has its own public utility company, Funeral Services, and according to its director Dragan Baltovski, the practice is that they get called to act.

"The ambulance crew states that death had occurred, and the police make a report and then call us to transfer the body. The police are in charge of organizing the transfer, but they often don't have a vehicle for that purpose and that is why they call us," says Baltovski.

Baltovski did not wish to comment on why that didn't happen in this case and whether private funeral companies can be in charge of that. On the other hand, the Ministry of the Interior told us that the ambulance is in charge of transferring the deceased, pronouncing them dead and taking away the body. But, the ambulance service claims otherwise.

Photo: Nikola Tomic

"In case of death in a public place the ambulance service only pronounces it, secures (covers) the body of the deceased and calls the Ministry of the Interior, which undertakes further actions within its competence. It is also not in the domain of the ambulance service to inform an undertaker, weather the public or a private (company)," they told us.

In this case, the private undertaker got more work, while citizens got a horrible scene that they will not be able to forget for a long time. Except for those who are so jaded they don't even react to death and see nothing controversial in eating or having fun next to a life that just ended.

(Telegraf.rs)