Disturbing video shows Brooklyn Hospital Center staff lifting bodies with forklift

[sheshe2]

**Trigger Warning**

BY KEVIN DUGGAN

As the death toll from the novel coronavirus continues to rise, hospitals have gone to frightening lengths to deal with the surge — including at Brooklyn Hospital Center in Fort Greene, where staff resorted to using a forklift to load dead bodies into an 18-wheeler tractor-trailer on March 29.

Video captured from the ghastly scene shows hospital workers unloading the bodies into the trailer parked on Ashland Place between Myrtle and Dekalb avenues around 10:40 am, according to the man filming from his car.

“They’re putting the bodies in [an] 18-wheeler,” said the audibly distressed man. “My hand is shaking because it’s hard to look at this right here, what I’m seeing right now, it’s hard to believe this, but y’all this is for real.”

https://qns.com/story/2020/03/30/disturbing-video-shows-brooklyn-hospital-center-staff-lifting-bodies-with-forklift/

[Initech]

1. This is so disturbing.

[Sherman A1]

2. Well,

How else are they supposed to get them into the trailer?

The scene is exceptionally sad, but the reality of using a forklift to do the job needed is not. The workers are certainly being as respectful as they can be under the circumstances.

[OAITW r.2.0]

5. The Trump Hearse.

The volume and speed of these deaths require a pragmatic handling of the corpses. We don't need a plague to complicate things.

But these images are on all on Trump. The defining moments of his leader-less pResidency.

[3Hotdogs]

6. I agree.

Under normal circumstances, bodies are put on a special gurney and transported to the refrigerated morgue. From there, hearses back up to a ramp, collects bodies and transports them to a funeral home.

Now, there are too many bodies for funeral homes to accommodate. The bodies are loaded into refrigerated trucks to await disposition.

Looking at the video, the body is not being disrespected. There is no other piece of equipment to transport bodies over a street location.

What else would a viewer have them do?

The videographer is not complaining about the process. He is wanting to comment on the serious nature of the pandemic.

[tblue37]

3. His hands really were shaking. nt

[malaise]

4. Heartbreaking

[Igel]

7. The interweb reports that prior to this NYS averaged around 425 deaths per day.

Now they're pushing 500 just from corona virus.

I'll go out on a limb and say that there's overlap, since most of the dead are 70+ and already suffering from something, but it's not like that's a very large number at this point. Probably less than 1/day. The # of dead who are 90+ is roughly that for the 60-69 range, and those in the 70s and 80s are at least twice that.

One post seemed to express outrage that bodies were being removed from the hospitals in body bags. Back in the '80s, they usually were. Then taken to the funeral home and removed. You want your gramps propped in the back seat? Just laying there? You put them in a bag or otherwise wrap them. Bags are easier. Or they can just bury them in the basement, I guess. Hard to know, it's like people don't stop to think what must happen along the way.

Yeah, forklift. You have 50 bodies, 160 lbs each, that's 4 tons.

[Amaryllis]

8. Video URL:

https://www.facebook.com/therealcoreyteague/videos/811633312661745/