---
title: "Cargo Ship Spent Months With Captain’s Corpse in Walk-in Freezer"
description: "The body of a deceased cargo ship captain spent six months in the ship's walk-in freezer with 13 countries refusing to take care of it."
date: "2021-11-19"
modified: "2021-11-19"
authors:
  - name: "Victor Tangermann"
    job_title: "Senior Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/cargo-ship-captains-corpse-freezer"
categories:
  - "Future Society"
tags:
  - "cargo ships"
  - "covid19"
  - "shipping industry"
  - "the digest"
---

# Cargo Ship Spent Months With Captain’s Corpse in Walk-in Freezer

![The body of a deceased cargo ship captain spent six months in the ship's walk-in freezer with 13 countries refusing to take care of it.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/cargo-ship-captains-corpse-freezer.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Getty Images/Futurism\</em\>*

## Supply Chain Issues

It's a macabre affair: in April, the captain of a cargo ship, 68-year-old Dan Sandu from Romania, passed away.

Crewmates had to resort to stuffing his body into the ship's walk-in freezer, [*The Wall Street Journal* reports](<https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ships-captain-died-at-sea-six-months-later-his-body-was-still-in-its-freezer-11637332406>), but what they didn't expect was that Sandu's body would remain in there for the next six months — with an astonishing 13 countries refusing to take care of the body.

"All we wanted was to get our father home," his son Andrei told the newspaper. "How can this happen in 2021?"

## Staving Off Infection

The biggest reason why Sandu's body never made it to the mainland: COVID-19. Many governments still don't allow the offloading of a crew member that passed away due to fears that the body could still be infectious.

In fact, bodies are still sailing the seas on board ships for thousands of miles, according to the *WSJ*, with crews hoping of finding a home for them.

"The depressing thing about this is that deceased or dead people have no rights whatsoever," Jason Chuah, a professor of maritime law at London’s City University, told the paper. "It is a huge problem and reflects so poorly on our common humanity."

In October, Sandu's body finally made it to its final resting place in a small Romanian village — half a year after his death.

**READ MORE:** [The Ship’s Captain Died at Sea. Six Months Later, His Body Was Still in the Freezer.](<https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ships-captain-died-at-sea-six-months-later-his-body-was-still-in-its-freezer-11637332406>) \[*The Wall Street Journal*\]

**More on cargo ships:** *[Shipping Containers of "Spontaneous Combustibles" Fall Overboard](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/shipping-containers-spontaneous-combustibles>)*

## Author
I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/vtanger.bsky.social>)