An Australian funeral director was forced to store the body of a 441-pound (200-kilogram) man in her car on June 11 after a Port Hedland hospital morgue refused to store it for being "too fat," Agence France-Presse reported on Thursday.
Joanne Cummings, the co-owner of Pilbara Funeral Services, had to drive two hours to get back home with the corpse in her hearse, while the air conditioner was left running overnight to keep the dead body cool.
She told the North West Telegraph that she went through three tanks of petrol and had to check on the body every 30 minutes.
"I actually had to turn around and drive two hours home to Roebourne (in Western Australia) and keep him in my car overnight," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "I had to have the air-con up full and look after him that way, check on him every half hour, and the following morning we hired a sea container with a chiller unit in it."
Cummings lashed out at the Hedland Health Campus in Port Hedland for refusing to take the bodies of two large people in the past year after claiming it did not have the equipment to accept bodies of such size.
She recalled a Hedland staff member describing a 551-pound (250-kilogram) dead man last year as "too fat, he can't go in the fridge".
"It's a load of crap ... I could probably put a baby elephant in one of those fridges and it'd fit through the door, and they're refusing entry for a human being," Cummings told the North West Telegraph. "You can't say things like that -- imagine if this was your mother."
"My issue is if that was your father, mother, partner ... you wouldn't want them refused entry into the mortuary."
Ron Wynn, the regional director of the Western Australia's Country Health Service, released a statement saying the Hedland Health Campus equipment was only approved to store bodies up to 331 pounds (150 kilograms).
The limit was, however, being increased to 661 pounds (300 kilograms) after the installation of equipment was planned out.
"Staff will meet with the Pilbara Funeral Services to develop a formal agreement for receiving and storing deceased persons at Hedland Health Campus," he said.
"It is imperative that at all times a deceased person is treated with the utmost care and respect and viewings are arranged so as not to cause distress and inconvenience to grieving families."
