(
)
A medical-examiner worker who transported the corpse of a young man in a city van filled with bags of recycled bottles was suspended yesterday — as the dead man’s pals blasted the “disgraceful’’ incident.
“The employee has been suspended without pay pending an investigation. We take this very seriously,” said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the city Medical Examiner’s Office.
She said it wasn’t clear if the worker was picking up bottles when he should’ve been picking up bodies.
“We don’t know that. That’s what we’re investigating,” she said, adding that it appeared only one of the two workers manning the van was involved.
Friends of hit-and-run victim Kevin Bell, a 26-year-old champion Irish dancer and tough Gaelic football player who immigrated to The Bronx 10 months ago, were outraged over the incident.
“It’s disgraceful. Why would you do that? Why would that happen?” Bell’s roommate, Benny Doyle, fumed.
City Council President Christine Quinn vowed to hold hearings starting Monday to get to the bottom of the scandal, which was first reported in The Post yesterday.
“I am deeply concerned to learn that a young man’s corpse was treated by [the Medical Examiner’s Office] in such an undignified way,’’ she said in a statement.
Doyle, 39, had been out drinking with Bell, a native of Newry, Ireland, at the Trinity Pub on the Upper East Side the night he died.
Bell later separated from his friends and was fatally struck by a dark-colored minivan in his Woodlawn neighborhood at about 3:30 a.m. Sunday.
A worker nearby who saw surveillance video of the accident said Bell had laid down in the roadway with his hands behind his head and one knee bent.
“Like [he was] chilling,” recalled Abdullah Alkutamr, 21, an employee of the Oneida Deli.