GREELEY, Colo. — A family still waited for answers on Friday, more than a week after a man was found dead following a hailstorm in Greeley.
Joseph Carrisales, 48, was found dead May 28 outside a friend’s home near 24th Street and 8th Avenue after severe weather brought large hail and flooding. Several east Greeley neighborhoods suffered significant flooding from the storm that the city said caused more than $1.45 million in damage.
Carrisales was laid to rest Friday at a Greeley church, where dozens of people gathered to say goodbye.
“I think everybody’s going to take some time to heal,” said his sister, Irene Carrisales.
His mother, Domitila Carrisales, said she was told by the coroner’s office that her son's death was “from the storm” but said she hadn't received any more detail on the cause of death.
The Greeley coroner’s office told 9NEWS it's still investigating whether the death was directly connected to the storm.
Carrisales was with some friends outside when the storm rolled in. Those friends later told the family that they thought Carrisales was walking to his home nearby, as they raced into a house.
“I don’t necessarily want to know the sad details, but I need to, because I’m over here thinking, well, did he have an aneurism burst? Did he have a seizure? Did he trip and fall and couldn’t get up? Did he drown?” Irene Carrisales said. “His friends say the water was up to his knees when he went out there, and my brother was on the floor in the mud.”
She said the family has been told it could be six weeks before the coroner’s autopsy report is complete.
“It’s kind of like you have to process it to sort it out, and I just don’t think we're ready to get there until we have those answers,” she said.
The family is choosing to focus on the good things, like Carrisales' love for good barbecue, music and family.
A fundraiser has been set up to help pay for funeral costs.
“He’s more than a dead man found. His name is Joseph,” Irene Carrisales said. “And they did find him dead after the storm, but that’s not all there is to it. We don’t want him to just be associated with that gloom and sadness because there was much more to him.”
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