By Ben Conant
Monadnock Ledger-Transcript
Cournoyer Funeral Home in Jaffrey takes delivery of cremation trays in early April. Staff photo by Ben Conant
Funeral director Mark Cournoyer of Jaffrey is uniquely prepared for any possible surge of COVID-19-related deaths in the region. Cournoyer, who owns and operates Cournoyer Funeral Home in Jaffrey, is one of the only remaining funeral directors in the state who has served on a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, traveling the country to provide mortuary services at mass casualty incidents.
“My experience has helped me always stay more prepared than most,” Cournoyer said in a recent interview at the funeral home. “I’ve always got a couple of months extra embalming fluid, a hundred extra body bags on hand.”
Cournoyer’s retired from DMORT service now, but his time there in the early 2000s saw him deployed to some of the deadliest incidents in recent history, such as the Providence, Rhode Island nightclub fire of 2003 which killed 100 people, and in 2005, Hurricane Katrina.
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