A New York City morgue truck worker narrated the horror entailed in their duties of transporting the bodies of people who have fallen due to COVID-19.
After stay at home orders lead to the shutdown of his art framing business which he runs with his spouse, forty-six-year-old, Erik Frampton was temporarily hired as a worker at a refrigerated morgue trailer in the coronavirus-stricken Big Apple.
In an article published in the Gothamist, Frampton gave an overview on how the operations run in the morgue. He also said that they have run out of body bags and space which lead to the bodies to go through the thin temporary bags which caused the tubes which were connected to ventilators to be exposed.
Moreover, he said that he couldn't describe the difficulty of trying to remove the bodies which have been piled up in a very unorganized way and almost resembling a jigsaw. He also said that the challenge was to maneuver the shelving over the 50 to 80 bodies stockpiled.
Temporary morgue workers like Frampton are paid at a rate of $75 every hour. He also said that by the end of their first day they are already given their check-in case people who couldn't stomach the situations decides not to come back.
According to him, he immediately jumped at the available job opportunity without having thought about what it would entail and that I could drain him both physically and emotionally.
Last Saturday, Frampton announced on Facebook that he has been fired from the job, which was a huge relief to both him and his family. He also revealed how they used hospital bedsheets in replacement of the bags which failed to cause blood and fecal matter to leak.
It has been a long night. My mother and father slumber without knowing that on their screens when they awaken is a... Posted by Erik Frampton on Saturday, April 18, 2020
In the past month, the city has been forced to set up dozens of refrigerated mobile morgues outside of hospitals amidst the coronavirus pandemic. Frampton said that at this point, the shelving that has been installed supposedly to hold one body is now holding two bodies abreast. He also said that he would spend the first four hours of his shift going through a master inventory with the dead person's control number.
He also said that the morgue has provided them with two layers of body aprons, two layers of masks and gloves in order to protect them. He also added that they do not have any idea if the bodies were aspirating SArS-CoV-2 particles which could infect them.
In his post, Frampton also talked about how he tried his best to not spread the virus to his family especially to his husband Kirby. He also said that he was quite relieved to have been fired because he was scared to die after witnessing the drastic end of those who succumbed to the deadly virus.
As of the moment, New York City remains to be the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the US with 134,436 cases and at least 10,022 deaths.
