His father died on a flight over Winnipeg nearly a month ago. He’s still waiting for the body in California-صحيفة الصوت

Californian resident Nik Dimou has been waiting nearly a month for his father’s body, after he died of a heart attack on a flight, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in Winnipeg.

Dimou said he and his father, Leonidas, 75, were returning home from visiting relatives in Athens, Livadia and Mytilini — when tragedy struck on June 23. Since then, the family has been facing bureaucratic delays, despite wanting to honour the Greek Orthodox tradition of holding a service 40 days after a death.

Originally, Dimou didn’t know anyone in the city when the plane landed in Winnipeg and the local Greek community helped him find a funeral home. Dimou flew back to California, confident his dad’s body would soon follow.

“My family and I feel very hurt,” Dimou said Thursday from Costa Mesa, about 70 km southeast of Los Angeles, where his father lived with him. “Not only [has] my father, my best friend, passed away. He was a wonderful, sweet man. He does not deserve being treated so poorly.”

Michael Vogiatzakis, the Winnipeg funeral director of Voyage Funeral Home, who’s been working with the family, said the protocol in this type of situation is for the body to be held at a hospital until the medical examiner’s office completes its investigation.

After that’s done, the body needs to be released to a local funeral home until the death certificate from the medical examiner arrives, which is when he got involved, he said.

WATCH | Nik Dimou talks about delays following father’s death:

Dimou’s father’s body can’t leave the country without a registered death certificate and approval from Manitoba’s communicable disease control office, Vogiatzakis said. He applied the death certificate registration from Manitoba’s Vital Statistics Agency weeks ago.

Normally that takes three or four days, he said, adding he paid a rush fee that should have cut that down to two days. But it took until this past Wednesday for it to arrive.

Now, the communicable disease control office has to give the OK for the body to leave Manitoba — but it hasn’t been answering Vogiatzakis’ calls, he said.

“That’s a real black eye on this province, where we could have handled it totally different and we could have had this family satisfied even though they lost their father,” Vogiatzakis said.

“We could have made it a little easier by doing our paperwork, having their father back home where they can have their service and find closure as a community and as a family.”

‘I just want to see my dad’

Dimou said his family has been left in limbo, worrying that they may run out of time to have a proper service for his father.

In Greek Orthodox culture, a service is held 40 days after a person dies to mark their journey to heaven.

“It’s very important, especially for me having closure. I don’t have closure. I still don’t believe – my father’s death, I don’t believe it. And I’m not sure if I’m not going to be able to see him before I bury him,” Dimou said, his voice breaking.

“I just want to see my dad. I just want to see [him], you know, to hold him. And I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to do that properly.”

Dimou said caskets are also typically left open for funerals in his culture — something Vogiatzakis said may no longer be an option.

“It’s a race against the clock. And unfortunately, the clock has beat us in this race because we’ve embalmed the person for a short term, a couple of weeks, [and] it’s been really hot out,” he said.

“The person’s been here for over a month and the chances of them having an open casket [have] vanished, which is 100 per cent wrong and disgusting, that a government would take that right away from an individual and from a family.”

The province has not responded to a request for comment from CBC News.

Dimou said the experience he initially had with airport staff and police showed him the friendly, kind side of Canada, but his later experience with the agencies responsible for getting his dad’s body back home have left him disillusioned.

“Growing up as a kid and in life, I hear beautiful things about Canada. Nothing but great things. I believe it for the regular people,” he said.

“But I don’t have faith in your government for how they treated me. And I wonder how many other people they treated this way.”