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Willa Ashenfelter and Irene Aukongak, Part 1 |
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| KAREN: How would you know whether there was drinking involved? WILLA: Usually it's somebody that come and tell us people are drunk and there is some -- somebody is hurt there. IRENE: People are always -- are always there to help us, too, besides the VPSO. WILLA: Seems like -- and if there was ever an emergency in the village, there was always people there -- IRENE: I know. WILLA: -- to get stuff for us from the clinic. They were more than willing to help us. IRENE: I remember the worst thing that happened was when one of my husband's nephews shot himself. I went over and he was just going down. He tried to say something to me, but he just -- he was just bleeding. There was -- Martha was with me, Martha Agloinga, Rita's mother, and somehow she got up there and I ran down -- we didn't have Hondas or anything in them days. I ran down to the clinic, got the oxygen, and I don't know how to this day I -- I was -- WILLA: You carried. IRENE: I carried that oxygen with box and all, all the way and down. WILLA: That's a lot of ways. IRENE: I didn't know, somebody said they saw me, I was just paying. WILLA: Oh. IRENE: But I knew what to do. Even my mind was -- Martha was there and some other people got there, but he was already -- I looked around the room and there was splatter on the wall. Couldn't do anything. And Martha let me go. And when the troopers came, they didn't even call me. So I just stayed home. WILLA: We get called so many times to that kind of... IRENE: Uh-hum. It's bad when somebody -- you know, say fatal, how they say it's fatal. That's real sad times for us. But then there's always people, like I say, they support us and call Norton Sound. WILLA: And then a lot of times after that, they would call us to come up and clean. So that was kind of an added on -- they would ask us to come and clean the rooms or -- IRENE: That's tougher, too. KAREN: After there's been a death? IRENE: Yeah. WILLA: Uh-hum. It wasn't part of our job, but I think a lot of us did it to make things easier for the family. We knew what they were going on -- IRENE: And it always was harder for us, too. WILLA: Yeah. But that kind -- that was really hard. KAREN: Did you have to do things with preparing the bodies, as well? WILLA: Uh-hum. Yeah. IRENE: Yeah. KAREN: As well as that? WILLA: Yeah. IRENE: But if there was like suicides or bad accidents and stuff, then the troopers. WILLA: The troopers would come. IRENE: Come in. We wouldn't have to clean that person. KAREN: Yeah. I'm going to change the tape here. | |
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Last updated 11-4-06
Last updated 11-4-06