Firefighters, emergency service workers and hospital staff turned out today to pay last respects to Christine Culajay.
Culajay died suddenly at her home in Flanders Dec. 29 at age 46.
She worked as medical secretary in the emergency department at Peconic Bay Medical Center. Her funeral procession passed Peconic Bay Medical Center on Roanoke Avenue this morning.
Riverhead Fire Department used two ladder trucks to make an arch for displaying a large American flag outside the hospital. Mattituck and Hampton Bays fire departments set up an arch outside St. John the Baptist Church in Wading River.
Culajay was also a volunteer EMT and driver for Flanders-Northampton Volunteer Ambulance. Her colleagues in the ambulance corps provided an honor guard during the wake at Tuthill-Mangano Funeral Home. EMS companies from around the county attended to pay tribute to their fallen fellow volunteer.
She was remembered by family, friends and coworkers as someone whose warm personality and positive energy touched everyone she came into contact with.
“We will miss her terribly,” her son CJ Kendrick said in a Facebook post in which he thanked the community for its love and support since his mother’s sudden passing. “We will never forget the effort and love that was put into this week,” he wrote.
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