July 17–24, 1997

hit and run

Get Me a Cold One

Well, even more so down at the morgue, which needs to keep as many as 75 bodies on ice at any given time.

That's why the folks at the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office (ME) are asking the city to spend as much as $100,000 to fix up what they call their "body boxes."

The body boxes, according to health department spokesman Jeff Moran, are 25 years old and in dire need of repair.

"But those repairs were put on hold because of the city's financial difficulties" back in the dark days before Ed Rendell arrived on the scene.

Now that the city is back in the black, the ME wants a piece of the pie to keep the stiffs on ice.

"We have had some breakdowns that had to be repaired," says Moran, who is quick to point out that at no time were any chilled corpses in danger of defrosting. "No corpses were ever endangered."

Still, no one wants to take any chances, so the city is looking for a company that can install a new refrigeration and air handling system for the ME's four body boxes, which can hold more than 150 corpses at once if needed.

The new system, says Moran, will use a chemical-based refrigeration system instead of the present water-based system.

That, he said, will increase the body boxes' coolant efficiency.

Something all of us can appreciate when the mercury boils.

—Howard Altman