Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
Dispatch From A Coronavirus Morgue Truck Worker: "They Write A Check For Your First Day, In Case You Don't Come Back"
By
Arun Venugopal
Published Apr 16, 2020
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
John Minchillo/AP/Shutterstock
By
Arun Venugopal
Published Apr 16, 2020
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
In order to handle the thousands of bodies of COVID-19 victims, the city has set up dozens of refrigerated trailers outside medical facilities. They are largely staffed by temporary workers, many of whom have operated in extremely difficult and often gruesome conditions. One of those workers, Erik Frampton, 46, emailed WNYC reporter Arun Venugopal about his experience. He and his husband run a boutique art framing business, but had to suspend their business because of the coronavirus outbreak. This account is based on that email and subsequent interviews; it contains graphic descriptions of conditions inside the trucks.
My friend got this gig through a neighbor and offered it to me. We were both welcome additions. There were about 10 in our crew, with two working at a satellite facility.
I lurched. I said yes. Without knowing why I was doing it, without knowing if I was at risk, without knowing what the cost would be.
We are mostly working in one of two full size 20 ton air-cooled trailers. Each can hold about 110 bodies.
They have obviously run out of body bags and space, with the heavy black bags being replaced with very thin white ones. Some are barely in the bags because they have ripped so many times. Almost all of the remains still have their tubes in them, especially the ventilator connections. Most of the index fingers clearly read “Covidean”.
At the main facility on Grand Concourse, yesterday morning began with a jumble of bodies in the trailer. No shelves had been installed yet. The morgue inside the hospital was completely filled with bodies on stretchers, also filling the room outside the refrigerators.
The bodies inside the trailer were not well marked. Sometimes we were forced to open up the bags to find ankle or wrist bracelets. Installing the three-tier shelves was delayed because they were being built hurriedly off-site and kept arriving through 4 p.m. At that point half of the shelving had been installed and bodies two abreast had been hoisted and manhandled and lifted into place.
If I could describe the utter chaos of needing to remove 50 to 80 bodies in a jigsaw arrangement in order to maneuver the shelving over them, I would. But words escape me.
Shelves are constructed in a hospital parking lot to be used inside the portable morgue for those deceased from covid-19.
Braulio Jatar/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
At the satellite facility two miles away, the trailer was more orderly, but there was no coherent inventory. Most of my first four hours yesterday was hand-writing a master inventory list with MR numbers (a dead person’s digits). Three bodies were not found for funeral directors who showed up to collect them.
We are dressed in two layers of body aprons to prevent liquids from splashing on us. Two layered masks--hospital grade--and unlimited gloves. We do not know if the bodies can generate aspirating [COVID-19] particles during their continuing leakage and decomposition, and constant temperature flux.
I absolutely protect myself to the limit of the equipment they provide me. At least, I hope I do, but I’m probably just naive.
We use hospital bed sheets where bags have failed. There are tons of blood and fecal matter, etc., that have leaked out. The floor is sometimes streaked with it.
It pays $75 per hour. They write a check for your first day, in case you don’t come back.
I think I’m scared of dying. I don’t want to die. I’m definitely scared.
My husband’s fears have gone from, “I completely trust you to protect me,” to “I cannot believe you’ve done this to me.”
We are isolating, in a weird way. We’re not touching. We’re not kissing.
But we sleep in the same bed. So it’s all just farce. Clearly the system is overwhelmed. Just caught completely off guard. Funeral directors I’ve met have complimented our operation as well run and organized, describing other facilities as more chaotic. Hard to believe.
Courtesy of Erik Frampton
Today has been smoother. The satellite here has successfully connected 13 bodies so far with funeral homes. We are handwriting the time of transfer, name, authorized person, etc. After being forced to shrug my shoulders several times yesterday, this is a huge relief.
I know that at least one body is missing in action. The family has sent a photo. That must be sooooo hard on them.
I know that most people go to a funeral and see a body that looks loved and manicured. Families should not know what is going on with their loved ones’ remains in this situation . . . . We have to really move them . . . and it is difficult, probably dangerous, messy. And they are sooooooooo heavy!
My mournfulness for each body, my respect for each body is a literal imagination of who knows them. Who's calling about them? What person could not visit them when they were, you know, in isolation before they had to go on respirator and they couldn't talk anymore? Who wants to know where that person is right now?
I don't have any mournfulness for the vessel that I'm handling. I guess if I did, I wouldn't be able to do this. But I do constantly think of the people who want to know, where is their person? I can assure them that person is safe. Cold. Respected.
I think of a Jennifer, I think of Moyshe, I think of a Santiago, I think of a Melissa, I think of a Bessey and a Betty, I think of an Hernan.
I can't stop thinking of them.
Tagged
COVID-19
coronavirus
deaths
hospital
Arun Venugopal
Arun Venugopal is a senior reporter for the WNYC and Gothamist Race & Justice Unit who focuses on issues of race and bias in our region. His reporting also tackles the topics of immigration, faith, and inequality. Arun serves as the regular fill-in host of the station's "U.S. of Anxiety" program. Arun was the creator and host of Micropolis, a series about race and identity. He is a contributor to NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He has appeared on PBS Newshour, On the Media and Studio 360, and has been published in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal and Salon. He also frequently serves as an emcee and moderator of panel discussions on race, religion, and identity issues and has been a guest host of NPR's "Fresh Air." He lives with his family in Queens.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
Central Park birders, others remember 63-year-old woman killed in park
People who said they knew her described her as an artist and a familiar presence in the Ramble.
By
Charles Lane
Published Sep 28, 2026 at 7:04 p.m. ET
Dump truck driver hits and kills cyclist on 34th Street in Midtown, NYPD says
It's the latest in a string of hit-and-run deaths in the city in recent months.
By
Liam Quigley
News
Dump truck driver hits and kills cyclist on 34th Street in Midtown, NYPD says
It's the latest in a string of hit-and-run deaths in the city in recent months.
By
Liam Quigley
New ingredient mandated for Latin American kitchen, restaurant plates in NJ
By
Arya Sundaram
A Brooklyn jail cell filled with smoke. The emergency button failed, a lawyer said.
By
Samantha Max
Crews launch tunnel machines to dig first new Hudson River rail tunnels since 1910
By
Michael Sol Warren
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .