Honor from China

Not only did I do removals at the mortuary but I also got the chance to learn cosmetics from two of  the most amazing women every when it comes to that job.  Mary was the first to teach me her secrets.  A staple of the society we lived in, Mary had lived in the city for years.  In her 80s when I met her and still doing her job while smoking like a chimney she was amazing.  The tricks and tips she learned and gave were only there for me to absorb because of her years in the business.  Mary had gone to cosmetology school way back when.  When she finished she went to work for the mortuary doing piece work (hair and cosmetics only and when she was needed).  Mary had been at the same mortuary for over 60 years.  Most people aren't even in a marriage that long.  The second cosmetologist I worked with was Sharone.  Sharone was a white-girl with the black-girl attitude.  Her children were mixed and she only dated black men giving her that certain attitude that makes you giggle because she is a white-girl.  Her talent was great.  She knew just the right colors and amount of make-up to use without making them look like a porcelain doll that is plastered with make-up.  Both of these women taught me their tricks over the years and gave me the ability to because decent at cosmetics.  It isn't like putting make-up on living skin.  Living skin has elasticity because of your muscles still having control, pores absorb and expel, there is life in the skin that works with make-up.  The skin of a deceased is dry.  If they are embalmed it is firm because of the chemicals used, will absorb anything because of the drying chemicals and sometimes discolored horribly.  Unembalmed skin is even worse.  There is no firmness to it, any pull of the brush moves the skin with it, it's a little slimy because of the sebum of the skin not being washed off and has a huge lack of color to it usually.  It's more artistic like painting that being a cosmetologist.  My favorite part of it was using the molding was to repair trauma and missing parts of a persons face.  The sculpting skill needed to make a person resemble their pictures when what was there is gone is really challenging and fun.  One day at the mortuary we heard a tour bus crashed.  Several people died in the accident and some of them were family of some prominent Chinese officials.  We got those people.  I happened to be working on the day that they needed to be dressed and ready for family viewing.  Their faces had been crushed in the accident and there was discoloration and road burn marks on their faces.  With the skillful work of my hands I was able to wax and apply make-up to make them look surprisingly well.  We cleaned them up and put them in viewing rooms and awaited the arrival of their families.  To my surprise I was requested across the street to the mortuary to meet with them.  Dressed only in a pair of crappy scrubs I felt self conscious meeting Chinese Officials.  When I walked into the room an interpreter walked up to me.  The family was so very pleased with their appearance and grateful that I had given them the opportunity to say good-bye to their loved ones that they wanted to personally thank me and then a man took my picture.  I later found out that he was writing an article for a paper over in China on the accident and the work done on the deceased.  It's amazing to think that somewhere in China there is an article containing a picture of me.  I was blessed that day to feel like my job made a difference in someones life positively.  That's a rare feeling when taking someone's deceased loved one.

The most precious thing is and innocents life

At the mortuary I worked at we gave free funerals for children under 2.  Because of that, we had a high number of infant deaths that were called into us.  There is no words to describe the sadness that eats through you when you go into a hospital and wrap up a little baby and carry their lifeless body out.  Babies were my worst enemy.  Even worse was when we had a coroner's call that was an infant death.  One of my most memorable pick-ups was for a 1 1/2 yr old...

I had gone to the coroner's office to pick up the cases that they had ready for us to take back to the mortuary after their investigations were complete.  As I was loading up the first two cases the girl working there brought out this little boy on a large autopsy table.  A little figure was barely visible under the white sheet covering his lifeless body.  When the coroners office worker pulled the sheet back so we could check his identification there laid this little boy.  Just over a year old and the little boy was still in diapers.  That was the only thing protecting him.  The rest of his body was blistered, red, charred in other places and his hair had been singed off.  While having a party in their yard, this innocent little boy had fallen into a fire pit.  Why would this little of a child be left alone to get that close to fire?  How long did he lay in the pit to get that burned?  Why was it that the only body part not burned was where his sopping wet diaper protected him from the flames?  This was child neglect.  There is no reason for such cruelty in the world.  I gingerly wrapped his frail body in a sheet and plastic, transferred him to my gurney and loaded him up to go back to the mortuary. 

NASCAR move aside...

After that call I was broke in well to the life of a mortician.  There is nothing like being trapped inside a vehicle with a decomposing body, but oh did all the removal people get good at finding the quickest way to return them to the coroners office.  If it was a normal call people would take their time getting back to the mortuary, but oh those decomps.  You never really get use to the smell of decomposing meat, but it does become tolerable.  If you get any of the body fluids on you of a decomp though you might as well kiss that item good-bye.  No amount of washing or scrubbing gets that smell and greasy feeling out.  I ruined countless pairs of shoes in the course of my six years and we won't even talk about pants.  When removal people go on calls there is a set routine that gets followed to make sure it's as smooth as possible.  When a death occurs there are a few steps that not everyone knows.  If the deceased has been ill and is on hospice, either the nurse who is with them takes charge or if the family is taking care of them they need to call the hospice nurse.  Most people automatically think they need to call 911, but that is not true!  If the family knew that their loved one was sick and was receiving care through a hospice or doctor, they are the ones to call first thing.  If they are called they will check the deceased and call a mortuary of the families choosing.  If the family ends up calling 911 an ambulance and cops are sent to the house, they then have to call the coroners office who has to send an investigator out to the house.  The coroner then has to contact the doctor to verify that yes, the person was ill and their death was expected.  Then the coroner will call the mortuary of the families choosing.  If, in that long process of unintended phone calls, the coroner does not get a hold of the patients doctor, the coroner has to take control of the deceased's body until they contact the physician.  It makes the process so much longer and more stressful for the family.  Always remember, if you have a loved one who knew it was impending, call their hospice or doctor first when the death occurs.  After the person is declared dead, the nurse or the coroner calls the mortuary.  At our mortuary we had a switchboard operator who answered the phones and they gathered some general vital statistics and other information and sent the first-call to the preparation facility.  When we got the call in the preproom someone left directly from there or a driver was called who was available close to the death area.  The driver tried to hurry as quick as possible to the first-call and upon arrival grabbed the first-call book and went into the facility or home.  One person was all that was usually needed for hospices, hospitals or some group homes.  Two people were required at a home because usually you needed the extra muscle to get the person out because of not being able to get the gurney right next to the bed or wherever the person may be to get them out of the house.  After signing the necessary paperwork with the nurse or coroner we would talk to the family if they were there and see if they had any questions or needed one last moment with the deceased before we took them.  We would then go into the room and analyze the scene of the deceased.  Would we need to carry them to the gurney?  Would we need help moving them because they were large?  Do we need an extra hospital sheet for any body fluids or to help move them?  Did a hospital ID band match the information we had?  Did they have any personal items on?  All of these were some of the questions we had to ask before even touching the deceased.  A paper toe tag was filled out with name, place of death and SSN then placed on the deceased's right toe for our identification.  Then we would return to the van grabbing gloves, a plastic sheet we used, a hospital sheet if needed and our gurney.  Going back into the room it was favorable to get the gurney right next to the bed the deceased was on, if possible, and then transfer then straight across to the gurney.  Each call the same routine, different cases.  Throughout the rest of this blog I will share some of my most memorable cases with you...

As best put by Ludo in Labyrinth.... Smell Bad!

Well, then next day I got to go on my first removal with Ben.  The mortuary I worked at was special because in the town we lived in the coroner's office did not do their own pick-ups.  A coroner investigator was on the scene but the mortuaries in the city took week long rotations taking the bodies to either the coroner's office if more information was needed or taken back to their mortuary if there was nothing suspicious.  The first call came through the printer and Ben said, "here we go!"  We went outside and got into one of six Chevy 1/2 ton vans parked along side the preproom.  (That was just the van this particular mortuary liked for running.)  Each van was unmarked except for a personalized license plate with a name and number on it.  Inside the vans the front two seats were the only thing left factory.  The back is gutted out with a metal plate lining the floor.  On the end of the metal plate by the back doors there are two metal cups affixed, these hold pegs on the underside of the gurney.  Two gurneys go by the back door and a shorter 'straight cot,' meaning it only is up or all the way to the ground, goes in the side door.  Three bodies can be picked up at one time while a driver is out on the road.  As we started driving to who knows where I was looking around at what was in the van.  There was a cardboard box between the seats that held plastic books.  Inside these books there was the first-call handouts.  Pamphlets to hand to the family with information on what happens now, cremation, burial, death certificates, etc.  There was also a tote bag laying beside the box.  What's the tote bag for?  Well, I learned it's the most dreaded going through a hospital.  The tote bag was for infants.  When a tiny baby dies it's very hard for a family and seeing a huge gurney rolling down the hall with a little bump is extremely unsightly.  So, if the infant was small enough they could be carried out in a tote bag.  Most people wouldn't even think twice about what it would be unless they were familiar with the ominous tote bag.  The first-call wasn't far away from the mortuary.  A low-income housing park is where we ended up.  A couple cop cars an a coroner vehicle were parked in front of one unit and Ben said that must be it.  We backed into an open space left right in front of a walk way leading to an open unit.  We walked up the sidewalk empty handed at first, except for the first-call book.  As we neared there was an unpleasant smell.  It's also not good when the police officers are gathered outside a residence and not inside.  Ben turned through the doorway with a big last breath.  Yup, it was a decomp.  A decomp is a decomposing body.  Mortician's don't use that word lightly.  You have your nice, clean bodies.  Your soiled themselves, haven't bathed for a while, normal bodies.  There are your have been sitting around and skin is starting to blister and fall off with a smell of sulfur slight-decomps.  And then there are your yeah, they have been sitting around for quite a while, turned green, bloated with tissue gas, when you touch them the skin sloughs off decomps.  Finally there is your was a decomp, now has maggots, lost all the bloated gas they had because the pressure has forced it out of any open orifice or weak spot and now they are a total decomp.  He was a decomp.  We walked into the cluttered, tiny apartment and there he was lying on the sofa.  Green, bloated and smelling oh so ripe I just wanted to run.  I had to touch that thing!?!  Ben said this would be the perfect case to break me in and laughed.  Because of the degree of decomposition the coroner investigator estimated he had been there for about a week.  With that degree of decomposition it is also hard to determine cause of death by sight so he needed a more thorough once over.  We were going to have to take him back to the coroner's office.  We went back to the van, got three clean sheets, a body bag, two pairs of gloves each and went back in.  To make a call as easy as possible you want to be able to get your gurney directly parallel to the body so you just have to transfer straight across to it.  We moved a coffee table that was piled high with porno mags... some still in the packaging, he must have been a collector.  The gurney then was right next to the couch.  The adjustable cots could go down at different levels unlike the straight cots that were up or down, we used the adjustable this time.  With the gurney lowered to the proper height we put on our two pairs of gloves, opened the body bag with the zipper flap on our side to protect our pants from any body fluids and laid one of the clean sheets in the bag.  Then it was time to roll the man into one of the other clean sheets.  We tucked one side of the sheet as far as we could under the man on the side we could reach.  Then we had to roll him forward to bring the sheet up his back.  We took the third sheet and opened it up in front of him.  Ben said we were using this one to hold onto his wrists and legs while rolling him.  You see, once decomposition is that far advanced if you pull on the persons skin it will tear and start pulling away from the body.  What is left is like a severe burn without the skin, a wet and slippery mess.  As soon as I grabbed his ankle to pull him forward I felt the skin give under the sheet.  It is the weirdest feeling to have what you know should be solid in your hand give away.  It was almost like the sheet was covered with Crisco and my hand was slipping off the body even though he was dry and it was his skin sloughing off under the sheet.  Slowly forward he went and we could start seeing the sheet under him.  Then, it happened.  There was so much gas built up in him that it had to escape somewhere and the pressure in his belly made him pass gas, except there was a slight problem.  A rather large blue dildo shot almost a foot from his rectum!  Ben and the coroner investigator started laughing as I looked in horror.  I was naive and had never seen one in a picture let alone fly out of a dead mans ass!  Ben moved it to the side and we finished pulling up the sheet and used it to pull him on the gurney.  Removing the first pair of gloves that were now covered with decomp juices we zipped up the body bag and hurriedly took him to the coroner's office.  Have you ever been on a long car ride where someone with you farts in the car?  Well imagine that but they have been holding that fart for weeks and had eaten only Mexican food the whole time.  It's not a pleasant car ride.

Well that's embarrassing.

So I was left with the turkey timer image after finishing up that case. We then would tie the arms up with a hospital gown so they were in the proper place lying on their abdomen for the viewing, place their head on a styrofoam head block and slightly turn it to the right (viewing) side, cover them with another sheet and put them in the smaller embalmed reefer to firm up from the fluid. What happened to that boner you ask? Well, they usually subsided after the pressure was taken off the vein and some fluid was released. Most morticians never leave the vein intact while embalming. The open up the vein to allow drainage of the blood so embalming fluid will take its place, doing so usually never lets an erection happen. Helen was special in that way making sure all body parts received an ample amount of fluid. It was the deceased's one last hoorah you may say. The next day, Ben was giving me the opportunity to go on some first-calls with him!

You're sticking what, where?!

The machine kicked to life and began doing its magic.  At first I saw no difference.  Helen began rubbing the body with a dish washing sponge.  She added a little soap to the body and continued the assault with the scrubby side.  Although it seemed painful I began noticing a change in the body.  The slimy dead skin was coming off, the tissues were beginning to appear as if they had color back in them and the person began to look like they were full of life.  It was weird.  The embalming fluid was penetrating the tissues and giving it the pink color our blood usually does.  Helen scrubbing so vigorously on the body was working like the heart pumping and valves working, moving the fluid throughout the body.  Helen then pulled out two small plastic half moons with little hooks on them like a cheese grater.  Those were eye caps.  Eye caps are placed under both lids to keep the shape of the eye since fluids settle and sink into the body.  She grabbed an 's' shaped needle and some white thread.  She used this to suture through the nostrils into the mouth, in the bottom jaw and finished back in the nostril to tie the mouth shut.  With the eyes and mouth now closed the person was beginning to look like they were sleeping peacefully.  I asked how long the process usually took and Helen said if it's a 'one-pointer' it can take as little as 45 minutes.  A one-pointer means that they only have the one incision by the clavicle to embalm.  If someone has a fairly healthy circulatory system them blood-flow goes everywhere, arms, hands, legs, feet etc.  If someone has a blockage somewhere, say they are diabetic and have poor circulation in their feet, then the embalmer my have to open a secondary artery.  If the feet don't receive fluid they have the option of opening an artery in the groin or the shin or even the ankle area to try to shoot fluid down to that extremity.  Each opening they make adds a point to the case.  So if they had to make both clavicle (neck) incisions, both femoral (groin) incisions and both radial (wrists)  incisions then they are a six-pointer with six incisions on the body.  How do you know when they are done?  Well, Helen had the perfect timer.  She never opened the vein of the body while embalming unless absolutely necessary.  Doing that caused pressure to build-up in the circulatory system with both blood and embalming fluid trying to fill the spaces.  This caused every open space for blood to fill and expand.... yes, that means with men she knew they were done when they got an erection.  The 'turkey-timer method' she used.  I laughed thinking she was joking at first but shortly the fluid began doing its job and the turkey timer was inching its way to done.  After all the fluid was in Helen opened up the vein and let a little of the blood to flow out.  Once she just started getting fluid she tied up the vein, removed the cannula and tied up the artery.  She did a final wipe down of the body and began towel drying them.  After they were dried, she grabbed a bottle of medical super-glue.  All of the leaks got a coating of glue.  If there is an iv site it would keep oozing because of the lack of clotting factor after death so a drop of super-glue would seal those leaks.  A small amount was also placed along the lip line to keep it closed and the eye lids to seal them shut.  Then came the disturbing part.  She pulled out a very large needle looking object.  Longer than my forearm and thicker than a sharpie this was a trocar.  The trocar is plunged deep into the abdomen slightly higher and off-center of the belly button to puncture all the organs and remove as much fluid as possible in the abdominal and chest cavities.  Ash she fanned the trocar upwards and downwards a clear suction tube attached to the end was pulling red, brown, yellow and clear fluids through the tubing out of site.  As much fluid as possible has to be removed to help preserve the body.  Fluids left inside will only decompose and start to break the body down faster.  Once she was happy with what she got out she grabbed two bottle of DriCav and attached them to a yellow rubber tube that took the place of the clear tubing.  The DriCav is a very strong embalming chemical that preserves tissues greatly.  She pulled out the trocar and screwed in a small white, plastic button that sealed the hole.  Embalming was complete on this case.

You do what to my naked body?!

I got to watch my first embalming that day.  I remember the process perfectly.  We went up to the 'big reefer' (the large refrigerator that held the unembalmed bodies) and chose the correct person whom we received a written consent to embalm on.  At this mortuary we started with a paper toe tag that was placed on the right toe of the deceased.  On that tag we wrote their full name, social security number and place of death.  That had to match with a hospital id band on the patient somewhere and then both of those were matched with the first call sheet in the folder which contained all of the above information.  When we brought them down to the embalming room we untied the plastic we wrapped around them to stop any body fluids that may come out from contaminating things, untied the hospital sheet we had wrapped around them and exposed this frail old person we were about to preserve.  Dressed in only a hospital gown I couldn't imagine the tests we were going to put them through.  This body did not look like the clean made-up wax figure I had seen in the other room.  This person smelled horrible of urine and dirty hair.  Their skin was damp from being inside the plastic sheet and collecting condensation from the reefer, causing their dry skin to become a thin white slim covering parts of their body.  When we removed the hospital gown and Helen grabbed an arm and I grabbed the leg to pull them directly onto the cold stainless-steel table my hands slipped from the slippery gook of dead skin.  We finally got him onto the table and Helen kicked into auto mode.  She turned on a water hose and hooked to to a rubber suction cup affixed to the upper corner of the table.  The water ran down the sides of the deceased to their feet and down a drain at the end of the embalming table.  Helen then began mixing the embalming solution to be used on this case.  Mixing of fluid is really an art.  You have to be able to look and feel the body and see if they are really water logged, you need a strong fluid such as Manhattan that will help dry out the tissues more.  If they seem to be in fairly good shape and have not been deceased long, they use a little lighter strength fluid that will work just fine.  If they look really washed out, maybe a little dye is needed in the fluid to help pink them up more.  The most used formula at our mortuary was 2-1-2, two Triton, one Manhattan and two Chromatech.  After Helen mixed the embalming fluid she turned on her machine to mix it well.  While that was happening she grabbed a disposable scalpel.  A small incision is made just below the clavicle, an aneurysm hook is place in and the hole is stretched out.  Helen pulled up a few straw-looking structures and started explaining to me.  She showed me how the tendons are a little shinny, a vein is blue-colored with blood and the artery is pretty flesh-toned.  She loosely tied two strings around the vein and then isolated the artery.  Two more strings were then tied to the artery and she made a small incision in the artery taking special care not to break it.  A small amount of blood came out and she quickly put a cannula into the hole.  when then took a cannula clamp and made a leak-proof seal around the cannula.  She clamped the other end and then took the embalming machine hose and attached it to the cannula.  With one flip of the switch the game was on.