A Southland family was devastated to lose their son two weeks ago, and now they're facing a $50,000 bill to bring his body home.
Creed Norman Pierce moved to Peru at the end of 2018 to set up a local travel company. Early in the morning of July 17, two days after Pierce's 28th birthday, his family received the news of his death.
As if that wasn't enough, they now face a hefty sum of $50,000 to bring him home. That includes airfares for Pierce's father to fly to Peru and back, as well as the cost of transporting a body by plane.
When someone dies overseas, their family has to pay for an overseas coroner to release the body and then pay for a space in the temperature-controlled hold of a plane, which costs significantly more than a seat for a living passenger.
When the plane arrives in New Zealand, the family must pay another fee for their loved one's body to be released to them.
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Pierce's family is facing additional costs because they want to transport him to Auckland first so his friends can say goodbye, before flying him down to Invercargill where many of his relatives are based.
He will be laid to rest alongside his brother Corey, who died several years ago.
Pierce's older sister Paige has set up a Givealittle page which so far has raised almost $40,000 of its $50,000 target - twice what the family had expected to pay to bring him home.
In an update posted a week ago, she said the process had been affected by "delay after delay from Peru".
"Every little bit of money we are receiving makes such a difference in helping make this all possible," she wrote.
"I never thought in a million years it would cost so much and be such an ordeal to bring your loved one home to say goodbye."
Newshub.
