Covered bodies are probably safe to handle, but recommendations by epidemiology experts continue to change. So, conscientious transporters usually protect themselves with gloves and a buttoned lab coat. Ideally, all cadavers, regardless of the delivery route, enter the morgue through a single door. Beyond an anteroom for maneuvering the gurneys lies the holding area. In morgue's built today , this is a walk through refrigerator.
Older buildings have a refrigerated bank of individual drawers or a walk-in refrigerator.
After the autopsy, the covered body is returned here to await pick-up by the funeral home. Kathy Beauchamp has worked as a medical technoligist in the clinical lab sciences for more years than she cares to mention. She incorporates medical procedures in all of her fiction.