It’s been said that the dead can wait, but as a practical matter, they really can’t, not indefinitely. Yet cities like Los Angeles and Austin have had to rent refrigerated tractor trailers to store bodies. Why? Because medical examiner offices are understaffed and overloaded.
The bodies in those trailers, and in places in other cities, are waiting … to be evaluated by a forensic pathologist. There simply aren't enough of them to do the work, and a surge in homicides and accidental drug overdoses are pushing medical examiners’ offices across the country past capacity.