DON'T POKE THE BAG!

When I was a kid, I would go to the grocery store with my mom and always had a fascination with poking the various meats that were wrapped in cellophane. This obsession became so great that my mother would say, "Don't poke the meat!"

Why I had (and let's be honest, still do) this obsession is beyond me. I think part of it was this really cool realization that there was this ewwy, gooey thing wrapped in all this cellophane and your finger wouldn't get messy by touching it.

Transfer this obsession to the funeral world and I am in 7th heaven with all the stuff I get to poke around in. Yes it's disgusting but the textures of the human anatomy is fascinating.

Remember in my last blog how I mentioned that the M.E. had to remove one of our individuals for an autopsy? Well after asking a few questions I got the low down on this guy's situation. Apparently this person had dropped dead at work, (possible cocaine abuse), and the hospital did not notify the M.E. This, unfortunately is a pretty common mistake. What is uncommon in this situation is how long it took the M.E. to get notified, which was over 10 days. Remember this is the guy who died on October 1st, and was not picked up from the hospital morgue until this past Monday, the 13th. And the only reason that the M.E. was notified was because we had called and asked about this gentleman's situation!

So a transport company that works for the M.E. came out to The Home to remove the body so that it could be autopsied, this happened yesterday. Today when I got back from setting up a visitation at our other location I was busy washing the hearse. (Oh quick side note, I got to drive the hearse today and fill it up with gas. It was the coolest thing ever!) Right as I'm finishing up, Steve and Caleb come back with the body from the M.E.

I made a comment about how they get all the fun, sewing up the body, and Caleb said that he would gladly let me in on it so he didn't have to stick around any later than he had to. Wonderful trade off! I got Caleb to finish washing the hearse and the other cars and I got the chance to practice my skills!

After changing into my scrubs, Steve and I got busy unzipping the body bags, Dani was going to supervise us. When the unveiling was complete we all did a collective groan. This guy who is over 6 feet tall and well over 250 lbs, was so bloated from all the gasses that had built up from the autopsy (and from also being dead for two weeks now), that his gut bag was protruding from his abdominal cavity.

Back when I worked on my first autopsy case with the 22 year old who had died, the kid had only been dead for less than 48 hours by the time we got him, and also he was in a lot better physical shape so his gut bag was very well hidden within his skin flaps....really no matter how I phrase that, it will just sound horribly disturbing.

Once the medical examiner is done with all they need to do with the organs and brain they place them inside a clear plastic bag, and then place that bag inside of the body cavity and then do a very quick sewing job just so that the skin flaps are held together and the bag doesn't fall out.

Because this gentleman was so large, and so very very dead, his bag was full of all the noxious gases that protrude from a human corpse.

Steve got to work the head, applying the drying spray and the silly putty. Then carefully fixing the skull cap and doing the best he could sewing the flap of skull skin back into place. While he was doing that, I was sewing up the incision on the abdomen. Dani mentioned to no poke through the bag with my needle in order to spare us all a horrible stench and messy clean up.

I started near the groin, which ironically is where it is hardest to sew because the stomach is so soft. I had to go through three different needles in order to find one sharp enough. When you're sewing through human flesh you need to just the right amount of force and leverage to get through all the layers of fat and skin, all the while being very careful not to poke yourself with the needle. Finger and hand placement is critical. ...also knowing that this individual could have died from cocaine put me on high alert because there could have been a slew of other horrible things in his blood and guts. (And this right here folks, is why we in the funeral industry are having panic attacks about Ebola going around in the United States, this is a serious safety hazard that we must face).

So I am sewing along this guy's abdomen, having to clamp it into several places just to get the skin to meet, all the while having my hand basically down into his cavity pushing down on his gut bag. Right around the belly button is when it happened. I was pressing through the skin and pulling tight on the string when all of a sudden I saw this brown liquid come seeping through the stitching I had done, and a horrible odor began to form. ...oh shit, I poked the bag.

I quickly poured some absorbing powder over the belly button, and gave a small chuckle....well at least his gut bag will go down now!

I continued to sew, getting into a rhythm of pushing and pulling through the skin, making sure everything was tight. My middle finger on my left hand became extremely tender due to a cut I had received the day before, ironically Dani mentioned that you know you're doing a good job sewing when you start to get blisters.

Thankfully I did not have to work the Bermuda Triangle of death, the place where the Y incision meets, Dani was nice enough to do that for me. So while I was finishing up, Steve was riding the struggle bus trying to sew this guy's skull skin together without his long hair getting in the way. Dani had to go back over his stitching because you could clearly see a gap between the skull and skin...had this been left like it was, all sorts of nasty liquid would have come spewing out.

I had asked Dani what would we have done to create this man's neck if he were going to be viewed, the details are a bit horrifying. Basically we would have removed the gut bag and placed it on the table between his legs. Then we would have taken some thick cotton and shoved it inside his neck hole, trying to create the structure of the neck....kind of glad that we didn't have to do that today.

When we were all done sewing we washed him off and tried to transfer him onto the portable table. Because he was originally pushed down a little on the embalming table, (to give us room to work on his head), we had to pull him back up the table.

Dani and I had to each grab underneath his arm pit and try to pull him up, while Steve pushed on his feet. ...This is where another extremely disgusting thing happened...my hand slipped under from where I was holding and I came up holding a chunk of his skin....this is what we call skin slip people! -insert gagging noises here- A bit funny how out of everything I did, saw, and smelled, this is where I begin to gag.

After that Dani was fed up with this guy so she pulled out a large white strap to help heft him onto the table. Some funeral homes have a really nice machine that will hoist bodies on and off of the embalming table, and into caskets....unfortunately we still do things the old fashion way...a surprisingly disgusting workout.

Thankfully I didn't have to stick around for clean up because I had to get out to our other location to work a visitation, and that deserves a blog all to itself, which I hope to write tomorrow after the I experience the joy of working its service and committal.

Until next time.