"We ran out of (hospital) beds," an ER worker told CNN. (Photo: Screengrab, CNN video)
The grim and chaotic scene unfolding at Detroit Medical Center's Sinai-Grace Hospital may have just been summed up in two photos.
Shared among staff and obtained by CNN, one image shows more than a dozen bagged bodies lying in what's reportedly a refrigerator storage unit. Another shows bagged bodies in a room typically reserved for sleep studies.
Sinai-Grace, the only hospital on Detroit's northwest side, has been grappling with an onslaught of COVID-19 patients and a shortage of staff and resources to deal with them.
Staff tell CNN the rooms were repurposed to hold corpses because there was nowhere else to put them.
The two sources tell CNN that at least one room ... was used to store bodies because morgue staff did not work at night, and the morgue was full.
"All I know is we ran out of beds to keep our patients on so we couldn't spare any for the bodies," said one ER worker, who witnessed the bodies in the room.
Bodies in a sleep study room at Sinai-Grace in Detroit. (Photo: CNN)
Last week CNN reported that at least two Covid-19 patients died in the halls of the hospital awaiting care, and the Detroit News reported the CDC had contacted the hospital because it had one of the highest mortality rates of hospitals in the nation.
Detroit is one of areas hardest-hit by the pandemic, with a death rate that exceeds that of New York City, the global epicenter. Sinai-Grace is surrounded by more than a dozen nursing homes whose residents are more likely to be gravely sickened by the disease.
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