Dozens Of Bodies Found In Unrefrigerated Trucks Near NY Funeral Home

Dozens of bodies were found in two unrefrigerated trucks near a Brooklyn funeral home on Wednesday.

Neighbours say Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Services in the Flatlands neighbourhood struggled for days to handle the overwhelming number of COVID-19 bodies.

Officers were called around midday on Wednesday after those neighbours reported a foul odor. Some residents in the area say they’ve been complaining about the smell for a couple of weeks.

One neighbour told CBS2’s Alice Gainer what he saw on Tuesday.

“They were unloading bodies. They had bodies all over the floor inside the funeral home. They came out one by one, blood dripping," he said.

"And those guys that was working, they’re eating with nothing in their hands. No masks, no gloves, nothing, and it looked like something fishy because of the amount of people these people was collecting.

“Oh, the smell, forget it. It was overwhelming.”

Hazmat, Department of Health investigators and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection were all called to the scene.

Once inside, officials learned the business was overflowing with so many deceased that workers had to place dozens of bodies in two large U-Haul trucks outside, which had no refrigeration.

“They had minivans dropping off, they had U-Haul dropping off, and we thought this was a cemetery, you know what I mean? It was overwhelming,” one man said.

An aerial view from Chopper 2 shows hazmat teams covered head to toe in protective equipment carting bodies away.

While there is no criminality, the funeral home could receive violations for improper storage.

Under law, funeral directors are required to store bodies in appropriate conditions and to follow routine infection prevention and control precautions.

“If it was my father, my mother, my brother, my sister, they’re not respecting the dead. I’d be very upset,” neighbour John DiPietro told CBS2.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams says the traumatising sight is one the neighbourhood should have never seen. He is putting together a bereavement committee to better handle the extreme loss of life the city has seen.

“It’s going to include our funeral directors, representatives from our morgues that are in the hospital, everyone that’s part of handling bodies, cemeteries, we want the entire process to be coordinated,” Adams said.

Adams says meeting will be held on Monday.

CBS2 reached out to funeral home many times for comment, but no one answered our calls.