Rob Ridi took care of the dead after the Port Arthur massacre, but he says the last 18 months in Melbourne have been the most "relentless" of his career.
"I was around for HIV, SARS, but nothing on this scale. Nothing on this scale. Quite relentless," Mr Ridi told the ABC quietly from inside a funeral home in Melbourne's inner north.
As an embalmer, he sanitises, prepares and presents the dead for funerals, including those who died of COVID-19.
Of the more than 800 Victorians who died with the virus, Mr Ridi cared for 230.
It was a job he said "had" to continue, especially during lockdown, when restrictions meant people couldn't grieve normally.
"That's the one thing we can't take away from them," he said.
"Even if they can't have a full-on funeral we had to give something, something for these people.
But to do their job, death care workers, such as embalmers, cemetery workers and celebrants have put their own health at risk and had to go to new lengths to keep themselves and mourners safe.
Mr Ridi's employer, Tobin Brothers, bought its own extra personal protective equipment [PPE], separated and created specialist COVID teams and people like Mr Ridi worked nights to ensure infections didn't happen.
Managing director James Macleod said his company was called in to help in Wuhan in January 2020, which helped secure extra PPE early, but the work was still physically and mentally demanding.
"COVID-19 I think was the most difficult times I have ever experienced in 35 years in the funeral industry," he said.
"Particularly for client families where they were being forced essentially to choose who could and who could not come to loved one's funerals."
Funeral services where emotions ran high also became a risk, as celebrant Stephanie Longmuir found out.
"It was exactly this time last year I led a service and four of those people tested positive for COVID," she said.
"Their father hadn't died of COVID, but he had been in a aged care facility with COVID and they had gone in and picked it up.
"I had to spend two weeks in quarantine and it wasn't great because I have a husband who is a cancer survivor and a son with a heart condition. It was a scary time."
She said during Melbourne's extended lockdown, she and her colleagues had to become "COVID police", by ensuring social distancing and turning away mourners if capacity had been reached.
Support lacking despite risks, research finds
Despite the risk, and the need for funerals to go ahead, a report by Melbourne University's Death Tech research team found the sector had not been properly supported.
Researcher Hannah Gould said inadequate PPE was supplied by governments early on and there continued to be issues.
"First foremost, death care is not recognised an essential service either by the public or officially by the government," Dr Gould said.
"They did not prioritise access to testing early on in the pandemic. They still haven't received priority access to vaccinations which means despite them often going into aged care healthcare services, they don't have vaccinations necessarily."
For Stephanie Longmuir being deemed "essential" would give the industry the recognition it deserved.
"It's been very difficult, this is a difficult job anyway, we are dealing with people at a really vulnerable time," she said.
Rob Ridi said regardless of what happened, he would do his best to keep services going so people could say goodbye to their loved ones.
For him, healthcare workers are in a "war zone" and need top priority, and the death care industry is not far behind.
"But it'd be nice to be double vaccinated by now," he laughed.
