# Are hospital morgues really located on the ground floor?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-really-located-on-the-ground-floor/536585
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 19, 2010, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-really-located-on-the-ground-floor/536585 "2010-04-19T01:27:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-really-located-on-the-ground-floor/536585/41 "2010-12-18T01:47:17Z")
I thought, like wine, the bodies were kept in the coolest place to defer rotting.
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### Author:  [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-really-located-on-the-ground-floor/536585/42 "2010-12-18T01:49:28Z")
Basement at the Hospital I work at years ago.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-really-located-on-the-ground-floor/536585/43 "2010-12-18T01:52:08Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> Apropos of this thread, here’s a link to [url “[http://www.usaplaza.com/scripts/wcom\_producttree.asp?StoreID=1905](http://www.usaplaza.com/scripts/wcom_producttree.asp?StoreID=1905)”]a site offering unique gifts (not for this Xmas, unfortunately, but for future occasions, it appears).
my rather paranoid setup of firefox with ad blocking and virus scan says this is an attack page … grrr?
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### Author:  [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-really-located-on-the-ground-floor/536585/44 "2010-12-19T04:30:19Z")
Where I’ve worked it has either been a separate building, or on the ground floor.
Always signposted as “morgue” and “authorised access only” though.
The truth is that bodies generally don’t stay there very long. Funeral directors will generally pick them up the same day or the next day, or, if there is to be a Post Mortem they go to the regional Forensic Pathology lab.
In one small hospital I worked in it was a small brick building in the grounds that just contained space for a couple of gurneys and was refrigerated. Memorable because the policeman with me vomited on my shoes. It is SOP here if a patient dies within 24 hours of admission to hospital to call the cops and have a doctor identify the body. There wasn’t anything particularly gruesome about this body, I just don’t think the police officer had ever seen one before, and probably wasn’t expecting me to walk with him across the carpark, unlock the door of this hut-like structure and then to be confronted with a body bag on a gurney.
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### Author:  [@Shinna\_Minna\_Ma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shinna_Minna_Ma)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2010, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-really-located-on-the-ground-floor/536585/45 "2010-12-19T13:28:44Z")
At the hospital where I used to work the morgue was in the basement.
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### Author:  [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2010, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-really-located-on-the-ground-floor/536585/46 "2010-12-19T14:12:44Z")
At the hospital I worked at it was on the ground floor of a ward far, far away from where most of the patients died.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2010, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-really-located-on-the-ground-floor/536585/47 "2010-12-21T01:53:03Z")
> [@aruvqan](#):
>
> my rather paranoid setup of firefox with ad blocking and virus scan says this is an attack page … grrr?
[Here’s why](http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://www.usaplaza.com/scripts/wcom_producttree.asp%3FStoreID%3D1905%26ProductID%3D61982&hl=en).
Since the malware is from another site, they may have been hacked.
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