A county just north of Detroit is scouting ice rinks to store dead bodies in if morgues run out of space

• Oakland County's Medical Examiner's Office is holding bodies of COVID-19 victims in its morgue, and is looking at ice rinks as a "last resort."
• Michigan has seen a surge in COVID-19 deaths in recent weeks, and hospitals in the metro-Detroit area are facing capacity problems.
• Many hospitals and morgues in metro Detroit are already using refrigerated trucks to store bodies, but they're becoming overrun.
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Officials in a county just north of Detroit, Michigan, are scouting ice rinks that could be used to store bodies in a "last resort" scenario if the area's morgues fill up.

Casimir Miarka, administrator for the Oakland County Medical Examiner's Office, told the Detroit Free Press that as the novel coronavirus continues to affect thousands in the metro-Detroit area, officials are looking at ice rinks to refrigerate bodies.

"That's our very last resort," Miarka said. "We hope we would never get to that point."

Oakland County's Medical Examiner's Office normally doesn't hold bodies for local hospitals, but because of a surge in deaths from the pandemic, it has taken bodies from at least one hospital, Oakland County spokesman Bill Mullan told the Free Press.

Like many hospitals in the region, Miarka said his office's morgue has two refrigerated units on site that can hold 20 to 25 bodies. He said the bodies of COVID-19 victims are stored in a different area from bodies that are in the morgue because of homicides or other cases.

"These other deaths the hospitals are dealing with are natural deaths and don't fall under our jurisdiction," he said.

Many hospitals and morgues in metro Detroit are already using refrigerated trucks to store bodies, but they're becoming overrun. One hospital stored bodies in an empty room this week because of overflow.

Medical officials from the Detroit Medical Center, Beaumont Health, and the Henry Ford Health System — all of which have seen a surge in COVID-19 patients — confirmed to the Free Press that they were using refrigerator units to store bodies.

At least 28,059 people in Michigan have tested positive for COVID-19, and 1,921 people have died. Detroit is the state's hardest-hit city.