Coroners prep for pandemic with protective supplies, morgue space
With personal protective equipment for workers and additional storage for bodies, the Cook County medical examiner's office and suburban coroner's offices are preparing for the worst from the COVID-19 virus.
These offices are adding morgue space and dipping into disaster preparation supplies so workers can continue, as safely as possible, completing duties that involve the living public and the dead.
In Cook County, all COVID-19-related deaths fall under the jurisdiction of the medical examiner's office because they are considered part of a “public health threat” under the county's local emergency declaration, spokeswoman Natalia Derevyanny said.
The office has secured a refrigerated trailer to add space for 30 more bodies to the morgue capacity of 285. The county also is accepting donations of personal protective equipment, known as PPE, including face shields, goggles, gloves, gowns, coveralls and boot coverings, to be distributed to first responders medical workers.
Deputy medical examiners and deputy coroners use this gear while following “universal precautions” during autopsies to prevent the transmission of illness.
“Any scene we go out to now you have to get fully suited up, including gloves, goggles and an N95 mask,” Kane County Coroner Rob Russell said. “We're going to wear everything we've got.”
But protocols for handling the virus' dead differ in the collar counties compared with Cook County. Coroners in DuPage, Kane and Lake counties, for example, say most COVID-19 cases will not fall under their review. Patients who contract the illness and die at a hospital, under a physician's care, will not require autopsies because they are considered natural deaths, the coroners say.
Yet coroners are increasing morgue capacity, too.
“At some point, if the hospital morgues are overrun or the funeral homes are overrun, then we would ultimately be responsible for the decedents,” Lake County Coroner Howard Cooper said.
Cooper's and Russell's offices as well as DuPage County Coroner Richard Jorgensen's office are among those that have added mobile refrigerated units to help store more bodies.
Jorgensen said there are some cases when a cause of death that requires coroner's review will overlap with a case of the new coronavirus. These could include COVID-19 patients who die at home or people who die of a suspected drug overdose while exhibiting potential COVID-19 or flu-like symptoms, as Jorgensen said one person in DuPage County did last week.
To make it through the pandemic, workers in Jorgensen's office are relying on a supply stockpile large enough to help them handle a sudden disaster of up to 150 deaths.
Staffers have been dipping into the stockpile for personal protective equipment “as needed,” Jorgensen said. Coroner's employees use hospital-grade N95 masks while performing autopsies in the morgue, but wear basic masks for other duties. The stockpile is holding out for now.
Cooper and Derevyanny said PPE supplies in Lake and Cook counties are adequate for the time being as well.
“We have a good amount. I'm hoping that it will be enough. But you never know,” Cooper said. “We need to make sure everybody's protected at our office.”
• Daily Herald staff writer James Fuller contributed to this report.