EDMONTON -- Alberta Justice has completed an investigation after bodies were stored in a refrigeration trailer near the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) in Edmonton last fall.

The ministry launched the probe after video surfaced showing a funeral home employee hauling a body bag off the truck in a rough manner in September 2019.

The video sparked outrage and prompted the Justice Department to apologize to families of the deceased.

The report details the circumstances that led to employees using the refrigerated truck to store bodies.

It says the OCME reached body storage capacity on Sept. 5, 2019 due to a spike in the number of incoming deceased people.

"Contributing factors to the body storage capacity being reached may have included understaffing in the Edmonton Investigation Unit, ongoing delays in hiring new Investigators, fatigue within the unit, a consolidation of operational processes and leadership that had not yet been fully optimized, and several OCME staff were in Acting roles at the time of the incidents," the report reads.

The trailer was brought in to provide additional storage space and bodies were kept "clean, secured and 24/7 monitored space, maintained at a proper temperature."

Its use was identified as a default option in OCME's Mass Fatality Plan, though the ministry admitted it was an "imperfect" plan.

As a result, OCME was directed to acquire additional body storage racks to "greatly diminish" the chance a trailer would be required again in the future.

However, there's no guarantee a refrigerated trailer will not be used again because there's no way to control how many bodies OCME receives at a given time.

"Edmonton OCME receives 7-8 new decedents per work day. However, OCME has no control over when decedents may arrive and the actual number received each day can vary widely, from zero to over 20," the report said.

The ministry clarified rules surrounding the use of such trailers and how they should be equipped, including a ramp and interior lighting that should have been in place during the September incident.

"Privacy screening should also have been in place, to better protect the dignity of decedents as they were placed into or removed from the trailer," the report says.

As for the funeral home worker seen hauling a body in a rough manner, the probe found "that this was a one-time incident by someone outside of OCME."

The employee was directed by management to seek help in order to move the body, but "for reasons unknown," he ignored the order and tried to move the body on his own.

The ministry recommended OCME to develop additional rules on respectful handling of bodies.

The report concluded that bodies cannot be refused when they arrive at a Chief Medical Examiner's office, and in this case, a refrigerated trailer was the best possible alternative.

While that could be considered disrespectful, "it was an operational necessity at the time," the ministry said.