In the Valley: Crematoriums are running overtime. Families must wait more than a week to bury their loved ones

Crematoriums are running overtime. Families must wait more than a week to bury their loved ones

Texas Border Business

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Reporting and writing by Shannon Najmabadi, photography by Miguel Gutierrez Jr.

McALLEN— Juan Lopez is in the ambulance bay of a McAllen hospital, zipping a gauzy blue jumpsuit over a Polo button-down and work slacks. Two well-worn stretchers are in the back of his Cadillac Escalade, a pack of Marlboros near the gear shift.

It’s Saturday morning in South Texas, and the corpse of a 60-something-year-old needs to get to a funeral home — specifically, a refrigerated truck behind a funeral home that’s run out of storage space. The deceased coronavirus patient goes in the back of the Escalade, and Lopez heads to retrieve a body from another hospital’s morgue.

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These are the first jobs of the day — and far from the last. Lopez will pick up 16 bodies Saturday, wake up at 2 a.m. Sunday and transport 22 more, including a husband and wife, both infected with the virus. More info, click the link below:

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/21/texas-coronavirus-deaths-rio-grande-valley/?utm_source=Editorial%3A+Texas+Tribune+Master&utm_campaign=f261c12662-Top_Story_Alert_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d9a68d8efc-f261c12662-101362337&mc_cid=f261c12662&mc_eid=9e0ac97bf0

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