Did Mission Hospital in North Carolina contain 900 unidentified bodies of Hurricane Helene victims and was the hospital turned into a morgue amid the disaster? No, that's not true: "Mission Hospital is not serving as the local community morgue," a hospital spokesperson told Lead Stories. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services told Lead Stories they had "no information that indicates that there are 900 plus unidentified decedents at any location in North Carolina." The person who first said there were 900 unidentified bodies at a hospital in the hurricane-ravaged area updated their account on X with a video saying a worker from the hospital told her that information was "not true."
The claim appeared in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, on October 3, 2024 (archived here). The claim began:
There are reports that Mission Hospital in Asheville North Carolina was told today, that they will be the morgue for body recovery. As of a few days ago, there were reports of 900+ bodies at the hospital that haven't been identified.There are also reports of babies and children washing up in the river, and more reports of bodies in trees.
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Oct 11 14:59:20 2024 UTC)
This fact check will focus on the claim in the text of the tweet and not the video embedded in the post.
"Mission Hospital is not serving as the local community morgue," Nancy Lindell, division director public and media relations for HCA Healthcare North Carolina Division/ Mission Health, told Lead Stories via email on October 9, 2024. She continued:
The federal government is responsible for efforts regarding fatalities in a community after a disaster, and Mission Health system, through an agreement with Buncombe County, is assisting that effort by providing off-site facility support. If anyone is looking for a missing family member, please have them contact Buncombe County's Family Assistance Center at 828.820.2761.
"We have no information that indicates that there are 900 plus unidentified decedents at any location in North Carolina," Kelley Richardson (archived here), communications and health education supervisor for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), told Lead Stories via email on October 11, 2024. Richardson explained that Mission Hospital is involved on the "mass fatality response":
Local Emergency Management, EMS, the NC Medical Examiner System and OCME staff are working cooperatively with FEMA and western NC hospital systems, including Mission Hospital, on the mass fatality response. Together they are ensuring the right procedures and plans are in place for mass casualties and remain focused on their efforts to care for the decedents and to support the families left behind.
Each decedent is being tracked and cared for at one of three locations - Joint Force Pisgah central processing center in Asheville, Joint Force Pisgah facility in Charlotte and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) in Raleigh. The more complex cases are being sent to Raleigh. The medical examiners in our state work to determine if an individual's death is attributable to Helene and the process to verify these deaths takes time.
Every death related to a hurricane is a tragedy. If a family or individual is seeking assistance with a loved one who has died, emergency responders are available in every impacted county to provide help and ensure their loved one is treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.
There are 93 verified storm-related fatalities from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina as of October 11, 2024, NCDHHS reported (archived here), with 42 deaths in Buncombe County.
"This is a social media rumor that is unequivocally untrue," Lillian M. Govus, Buncombe County communications and public engagement director, told Lead Stories via email on October 11, 2024.
The claim of 900-plus unidentified bodies at a hospital originated from a video posted on the TikTok account @LadyBluefarm (archived here). In the video, the account owner claimed to have an "update from my husband" about the situation in North Carolina. The user has deleted the video, but it was posted on this account on Facebook (archived here). In the video she said:
The locals are saying that there are around 900 unidentified bodies at the Biltmore Hospital alone.
The user posted an updated video on TikTok (archived here) on October 9, 2024, stating that she needed to "clear something up" and that the information about the 900 plus bodies at the hospital was "not true":
One, I got the name wrong, it's called Mission Emergency. Two, a worker there let us know that was not true and praise God because we don't want those kind of things to be true.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims about Hurricane Helene are here.
