Shocking photos of 'bodies piled in vacant rooms at Detroit hospital'
Disturbing photos show ‘bodies stored in a room at a Detroit hospital and piled on top of each other in a mobile morgue’
- An emergency room worker at Sinai-Grace Hospital in Detroit shared the shocking images with CNN
- In one photo, two victims in body bags are seen lying side-by-side on a bed and a third is propped up in a chair
- A second photo shows body bags stacked on the floor of what is said to be a mobile morgue in the parking lot
- Two other ER workers confirmed that the shots are an accurate portrayal of what took place at Sinai-Grace during an overwhelming 12-hour shift earlier this month
- That shift was in the midst of the hospital’s busiest period to date, which saw staff scrambling to treat up to 130 patients at a time as COVID-19 killed around five people every 12 hours
- A hospital spokesperson told DailyMail.com that they will soon release a statement about the photos
- Learn more about how to help people impacted by COVID
Harrowing photos allegedly taken at a Detroit hospital where coronavirus patients have died in emergency room hallways show bodies stored in vacant rooms and piled on top of each other in a mobile morgue, CNN reports.
An emergency room worker at Sinai-Grace Hospital shared the shocking images with the outlet, which published them on Monday.
In one photo, two victims in white body bags are seen lying side-by-side on a bed and a third is propped up in an arm chair.
A second photo allegedly shows multiple body bags stacked on the floor of what is believed to be a portable refrigerated storage unit parked outside the hospital.
Two other ER workers confirmed to CNN that the shots are an accurate portrayal of what took place at Sinai-Grace during an overwhelming 12-hour shift earlier this month.
That shift was in the midst of the hospital’s busiest period to date, which saw staff scrambling to treat up to 130 patients at a time as COVID-19 killed around five people every 12 hours.
At least two patients were reportedly found dead after being left in emergency room corridors, sources claimed as they described a constant shortage of staff, supplies and space to store bodies.
A hospital spokesperson told DailyMail.com that they will soon release a statement about the photos.
An emergency room worker at Sinai-Grace Hospital in Detroit shared harrowing photos with CNN which were purportedly taken inside the facility as it scrambled to treat an overwhelming number of COVID-19 patients earlier this month. In one photo shown above, two victims in white body bags are seen lying side-by-side on a bed and a third is propped up in a chair. Two other ER workers claimed that the photo was taken in a room that is typically reserved for studying sleep habits but was temporarily used to store bodies one night when the morgue reached capacity
A second photo shows multiple body bags stacked on the floor of what is believed to be a mobile morgue parked outside the hospital. Two ER workers said they have personally witnessed victims being placed inside the refrigerated units in this manner due to space concerns with the growing number of bodies needing storage. The workers said that the blue bags in the photo contained personal effects belonging to the deceased
Two ER workers told CNN that the photos are an accurate portrayal of what took place at Sinai-Grace Hospital (pictured) during an overwhelming 12-hour shift earlier this month
The workers, who spoke to CNN reporters Ryan Young, Jake Carpenter and Paul Murphy on condition of anonymity out of concern for their jobs, claimed that the first photo was taken in a room that is typically reserved for studying sleep habits but was temporarily used to store bodies one night when the morgue reached capacity.
‘All I know is we ran out of beds to keep our patients on so we couldn’t spare any for the bodies,’ one of the workers, who personally saw the bodies in the room, said.
‘It was because we hadn’t gotten our outside freezers yet, so those rooms had beds and the morgue people don’t work over night.’
The ER workers said the incident prompted hospital officials to order portable refrigerated storage units to house the bodies when the morgue was full. Five units could be seen in the hospital parking lot over the weekend.
The second photo purportedly showed the inside of one of the units – where body bags had been piled on top of each other.
Two other ER workers said they have personally witnessed victims being placed inside the unit in this manner due to space concerns with the growing number of bodies needing storage.
‘Bodies are definitely double stacked on the floor. There is no lift to help put the bodies on the shelf,’ one worker said.
Blue bags seen on top of a few of the bodies were filled with personal effects belonging to the deceased, the workers said.
In a statement last week – before the body bag images emerged – the hospital’s director of communications and media relations told CNN: ‘Like many hospital systems, the demand to care for the ever-increasing number of patients is putting a strain on our resources and staff.
‘Surge plans are in place at our hospital to handle the increase in patient volumes to ensure we provide the safest and most appropriate care for our patients.’
Six ER workers told CNN that the case load has finally slowed down in recent days. They said they are now treating about 50 patients daily – down from the peak of up to 130 in early April.
ER workers said that hospital officials ordered portable refrigerated storage units to house bodies after the night when staff had to leave several in the sleep studies room because the morgue was full. Similar portable refrigeration units are seen outside the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s office in Detroit
Sinai-Grace Hospital has one of the highest mortality rates in the country – with an average of five people dying every 12 hours
Several staffers have previously spoken out about the chaos at Sinai-Grace, describing warlike conditions in the ER as a high fatality rate led to dire shortages of body bags and space to store victims.
‘All three coolers are filled, the morgue and the viewing room next to the morgue are full and right now, we’re taking bodies to the sleep lab to store them,’ Jeff Eichenlaub, a weekend day-shift emergency room nurse at the for-profit hospital, told The Detroit News last week.
‘We initially had to double bag each patient, but we started to run out of body bags and began scrambling floor-to-floor to find places to take them.’
One worker described the hospital as looking like a ‘third world country in a war zone’.
Another said patients ‘we know are going to pass’ have been taken off monitors to free it up for ‘someone else that needs it’.
‘Last week,’ a nurse said, ‘I did witness one patient who had expired that was on a stretcher bed in the hallway next to someone in a chair’.
Healthcare workers told The Detroit News that patients lining the hallways are mostly from the local nursing homes, who staff say can not be helped to beat the virus.
Families are called to grant a do-not-resuscitate order and patients are then left to die alone.
‘The “non-breathers” sitting in the hallway are a lot of our DNRs dying by themselves, and there are times where it’s so busy we don’t have time to even call families to inform them they’ve passed,’ Eichenlaub said.
‘Their families would call two days later and we’d have to say “let me find a physician for you”.
‘It’s disheartening because you can almost see someone and know they’re going to die. Then have to tell a family member “I know they were completely fine when they came in, but now they’re dead because the virus is so rampant”.’
Sinai-Grace staff members pose for a photo while they work a 24-hour shift in support of night-shift workers who walked out in protest of the conditions in the hospital
Nurse Kenisa Barkai said she was fired after posting a video of her protective gear on Instagram.
Emergency room attending Sal Hadwan said he too was dismissed, telling The Detroit News: ‘We need more help because we’ve been working under extreme conditions. We told them we need additional staff and went to check on patients.’
He said that the hospital has been receiving between 110 and 120 coronavirus patients a day for the last three weeks and that staffing levels are inadequate.
‘They need oxygen, ventilators and multiple medications drips just to keep them alive and stable,’ said Hadwan, a DMC nurse three years.
‘It’s unsafe for patients to have one nurse tending to 25 or more patients. It’s unrealistic and dangerous to try to keep up.’
Nurse Kenisa Barkai , left, said she was fired after posting a video of her protective gear on Instagram. Emergency room attending Sal Hadwan, right, said he too was dismissed, telling The Detroit News: ‘We need more help because we’ve been working under extreme conditions. We told them we need additional staff and went to check on patients’
The hospital is the only one in northwest Detroit and happens to have the highest amount of EMS traffic, a spokesperson said.
The hospital is also in close proximity to 14 nursing homes.
‘Our top priority is the safety of our patients and our staff,’ spokesperson Brian Taylor said Thursday. ‘Out of respect for the privacy of patients and their family members, we don’t provide any details regarding the care of any particular patient.
‘Among the patient population served by Sinai-Grace, there are extremely high rates of underlying medical conditions such as hypertension and diabetes, which puts people at higher risk for COVID-19,’ he added.
‘In addition, there are a large number of nursing homes in the area surrounding the hospital. The spread of respiratory illness and COVID-19 among that population places even more pressure on hospital resources as those patients are sicker and in many cases require ICU level of care.’
The high number of dead at the facility has caught the attention of federal officials, however.
Earlier this month, Detroit Medical Center officials had a conference call with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because of concerns that Sinai-Grace had the highest coronavirus mortality rates among hospitals in the nation, staff were told last Wednesday.
Wayne County, which includes Detroit, leads Michigan in per capita coronavirus cases with 11,648 infections and 760 deaths as of Monday.
Michigan has the third-highest number of coronavirus cases in the US, with 24,600 reported to date, including 1,487 deaths.
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