Two U.S. companies, each with decades of expertise in mortuary supplies and emergency solutions, announced a strategic partnership to expand Acela’s growing rental fleet of purpose-built refrigerated mobile morgue trailers in response to pandemic-caused needs and multi-casualty incidents.

Mopec—a nationwide provider of high-quality pathology, anatomy, mortuary, and necropsy equipment and supplies—and Acela Truck Company—a manufacturer of specialty vehicles, fire, and rescue trucks as well as rapid response mobile mortuary trailers—have partnered together to help overcome the challenges and lessons learned during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the initial emergency response to COVID-19 emergency managers, hospitals, morgues, and funeral homes were forced to utilize standard, repurposed food delivery trailers to try to deal with the onslaught of fatalities. The logistical and functional challenges of using standard food trailers—such as a lack of proper shelving, lifts, lighting, safe and easy-to-use ramps and railings, along with lack of accessible loading and unloading—quickly became apparent. Operators went looking for a viable solution.

“Our rental program offers easy to deploy, medical-grade assets to our frontline workers that demand and deserve safe and reliable tools while also providing a respectful and dignified temporary home for the deceased,” noted David Ronsen, president of Acela Truck Company.

The Mopec-Acela partnership to provide critical response capability to communities includes Mopec’s world class morgue storage equipment and Acela’s purpose-built morgue trailers.

“We are very enthused about the opportunity to partner with Acela. Working together, we will be more effective in assuring that health workers are kept safe through the body-handling process, and decedents are handled with the respect that they deserve,” said Jay Troger, CEO of Mopec.

Each Acela 53-foot trailer is fully equipped with storage for up to 70 bodies. The mobile morgues are outfitted with custom lifts; ramp systems; seamless interior surfaces and customized, expandable racking systems that accommodate industry standard equipment.