Pictures and videos emerging from El Paso County, Texas are revealing the tragic rate of the coronavirus pandemic in the state that recalls what had happened in NYC last spring.
Chilling photos of El Paso prisoners carrying and stacking COVID-19 victims were captured outside the medical examiner’s office and were confirmed by jail officials.
The prisoners volunteered to carry out the grim work of stuffing deceased people inside eight refrigerated trucks and are paid $2. They were given protective gears, masks, and gloves.
Authorities said that more trucks will be added as morgues overflowed with dead bodies in El Paso County.
More than 73,000 people in the county have tested positive for the bug as of Saturday and 762 fatalities have been recorded.
Earlier this week, Lawanna Rivers, a University Medical Center nurse in El Paso posted a harrowing video that detailed her daily struggles at work.
On the video, she mentioned a room called “the pit” where terminal coronavirus patients were sent to die when no hope of their recovery remains.
“I saw a lot of people died that I feel like shouldn’t have died. That assignment there broke me,” she said.
“I was put in what’s called a ‘pit’, and in this pit was eight patients, all Covid positive,” Rivers added.
“On my first day of orientation I was told, ‘whatever patients go into the pit, they only come out in a body bag’.”
The city has sought ten mobile morgues to handle the overflow in fatalities in the worst-hit region of the state.
