Hospital Security Used to Bag, Transport Dead COVID Patients
Exclusive
POI News Staff
Los Angeles CA January 2, 2022
Reminiscences of the early days of COVID19, security officers in at least two states have been seen physically moving dead bodies of patients who have succumbed due to the Coronavirus.
In Brooklyn, two hospital security guards were spotted in a hallway lifting a deceased patient from a gurney and putting it into a body bag.
And in California, a hospital is being criticized for leaving the bodies of nearly 20 COVID-19 patients lying outside in the rain before security guards could eventually move them to a refrigerated morgue.
Soaking wet body bags are seen piled up outside the Los Angeles-based Memorial Hospital of Gardena, owned by Pipeline Health System, in footage captured by CBSLA. Employees including security guards are also seen in the footage rearranging the body bags of 19 deceased COVID-19 patients and carrying them into a mobile freezer in the hospital’s parking lot.
A morgue inside the hospital could only hold six bodies, which has posed difficulties throughout the pandemic, a hospital spokesperson told CBSLA.
‘Hospital protocol calls upon security guards to assist in the process when mortuaries come to pick up bodies, primarily helping to lift and move the bodies,’ the statement continued.
However, a witness recalled watching teary-eyed employees carrying the bodies into the freezer in a recent downpour.
‘Security had tears in their eyes. They’re crying. Some of the security had to leave because they got fluid on their clothes when they did move the bodies,’ the anonymous witness told the news outlet.
The witness referred to what appeared to be body fluids on the bags and said there was no way the bodies were being stored at an adequate temperature. ‘Impossible. Those bodies were defrosted. They were decomposing,’ she said.
It is not clear how long the bodies were left outside before they were transferred, but the hospital confirmed that it has kept bodies in its mobile freezer for months at a time.
Vidal Herrera, the owner of the independent autopsy company, agreed with the anonymous witness and said that it’s illegal to store bodies that way the hospital was seen doing it in the photos.
Herrera, who owns 1-800-Autopsy, told Fox 11 that he also received calls from a mortuary picking up the bodies, adding that they saw ‘piled up, bloody body bags and didn’t know what to do.’
Herrera also spoke to CBSLA and said, looking at the photos, ‘I could see a lot of bodily fluids, and right there the pathogens- that can expose security guards and whoever walks in there. A body should never be there for more than two weeks.’
The scenes outside the California hospital are reminiscent of the early days of the coronavirus when disturbing images surfaced of bodies lining the streets outside of New York City hospitals before they were loaded onto refrigerated trucks that acted as makeshift morgues.
Security guards are often used to escort the bodies from an area of the hospital to the morgue which is in the basement area of the facility but during the initial onslaught of COVID, the security staff was often used to help remove and transport the deceased patients.
Employees at the Brookdale Hospital Center in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn were seen using forklifts to move the dead onto refrigerated trucks. Staff kept body bags containing deceased COVID-19 patients on stretchers as they moved them out of the Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Bushwick.
Meanwhile, the country is seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases fueled by both the highly contagious Delta and Omicron variants.
Two weeks ago, California re-introduced its state-wide mask mandate as cases spike by 47%. Since then, cases have skyrocketed.
The positivity rate has quadrupled since then, going from 2.3% on December 15 to 9.7% as of Tuesday night, according to the California Department of Public Health.
And the state became the first to record more than 5 million known coronavirus infections, according to the state dashboard Tuesday, which was delayed by the holiday weekend.
California’s seven-day average for newly confirmed COVID-19 cases increased to 19,950 on Wednesday – a more than 100% increase from the 9,506 reported the week before.
Cases have jumped by about 220% percent from the 6,203 averages recorded two weeks ago and have skyrocketed by roughly 360% from the 4,310 average cases recorded at the end of last month.
Security guards have previously complained about being used to physically manhandle bodies and being used to transport them from one place to another but there are no known lawsuits or complaints with state or federal agencies publicly available.
