Part 2.
This is Part 2 of my funeral home visit.
Putting on green scrubs makes you feel professional, at least it did for me. Before I felt like I didn't really belong, but now with my splatter screen, autopsy gloves and booties I looked the part. For a moment I stared at myself in the mirror of the prep room wardrobe, outwardly I indeed could have been a mortician, on the inside however I was playing pretend. I was also becoming increasingly aware of the sounds from the Embalming Room.
The rustling and thud a dead body makes when it is unzipped from a bag and heaved onto a shiny steel table.
Hearing before seeing made everything more visceral, I’ve always found my imagination far scarier that reality. Like the times I would picture Freddy Krueger chasing me, to make myself ride, run, swim faster.
I was about to get up close and personal with the Raw Dead, straight from the hospital morgue and I had no idea how I would react.
"You Ready?" the trainee looked over the rim of her glasses at me, pushing her frames up on her nose.
"Yep" I replied, perhaps a little too enthusiastic.
The first thing to hit me was the overwhelming smell of bleach, Keith was washing the body down with detergent and glorox. A young man was laid out on the sloping table , his feet toward a large ceramic sink, bubbles and bleach running down the table, out a small hole and into the drain.
He was bleeding at his neck and groin, obviously from some sort of arterial I.V, there was also a trickle of blood coming from his nose. The bin beside him was full of hospital artifacts, I.V sharps, sticky monitor patches ( that had left their residue on his quiet chest) and the bed sheet that had been his shroud. It was obvious that he had been wrapped up as is, or as was. His body had scars, like he had lived pretty hard or at least pretty violent, one looked like a knife wound, old and thick on his torso. BAD was tattooed on his right arm in large gothic letters. More boyish than bad, the toe tag showed his birthday as 1984. There was no time to be squeamish as Keith motioned me closer to watch him make a swift cut along the collarbone, using stainless blunt hooks he began to dig around in search of the carotid. Once he got hold of the pale artery, twine was tied around it in a bow and the same was done with the jugular. Pink embalming fluid was then pumped into carotid, replacing the blood that exited the other valve in the jugular. Keith asked me to rub the fingers and hands to help the fluid get into the tips. I saw nicotine stains then tiny specks of blood appear. The sort of thing you get from finger prick blood tests.
"Diabetes, causing liver failure" Keith's gloved finger flipped the badboy’s lower lip to show me the yellow tinge.
I watched this not long dead man, barely out of his teens take on a more lively appearance, the coloured liquid doing it’s job of blood mimic.
Touching a dead body is strange, they are surprisingly cold.
I wanted to see him from the other side, so I made my way around the outside of the room, not wanting to get in the way of the living.
When I got to the other side of him I saw that on his left arm he had a Jesus tattoo, strangely enough they were in similar poses. For some reason that moment was a trigger for sadness. This young man, younger than Jesus, gone. Just gone. He was being mourned at that same moment, by someone. I then felt compelled to wash the blood from his nose and lip, using the bleach filled sponge, I tried to clean him up. He kept bleeding though, the formalydne pump acting like an artificial heart up there on the shelf.
Slowly his blood emptied from his body, running down the table into the crisp white ceramic sink.
I watched as his jugular outlet was closed to built up pressure in the body, pushing formaldyne into the smaller vessels of the circulatory system.
After which I watched Keith aspirate the abdomen with a tool that looks like a spear, sucking out gas and organ contents.
At times I could see it poking his torso wall from the inside, that was the only time I winced a little. Just a little.
It was getting late and the smell of bleach was staring to give me a headache, so I watched a bit longer then thanked everyone for the experience ( in my head I thanked the dead too).
I took off my scrubs, threw out my gloves, booties and mask. Put on my normal clothes and stepped back into my normal life.
Walking home I felt incredibly alive and very mortal, everything was crisp, as if all my senses had been sharpened. The people I saw on the street became galaxies of potential, all the faces more expressive, more interesting.
I walked slow, taking time to soak it all up, perhaps because I was scared that it would pass, that in a few days I would start to forget about my experience with Death and just how alive it had made me feel.
Putting on green scrubs makes you feel professional, at least it did for me. Before I felt like I didn't really belong, but now with my splatter screen, autopsy gloves and booties I looked the part. For a moment I stared at myself in the mirror of the prep room wardrobe, outwardly I indeed could have been a mortician, on the inside however I was playing pretend. I was also becoming increasingly aware of the sounds from the Embalming Room.
The rustling and thud a dead body makes when it is unzipped from a bag and heaved onto a shiny steel table.
Hearing before seeing made everything more visceral, I’ve always found my imagination far scarier that reality. Like the times I would picture Freddy Krueger chasing me, to make myself ride, run, swim faster.
I was about to get up close and personal with the Raw Dead, straight from the hospital morgue and I had no idea how I would react.
"You Ready?" the trainee looked over the rim of her glasses at me, pushing her frames up on her nose.
"Yep" I replied, perhaps a little too enthusiastic.
The first thing to hit me was the overwhelming smell of bleach, Keith was washing the body down with detergent and glorox. A young man was laid out on the sloping table , his feet toward a large ceramic sink, bubbles and bleach running down the table, out a small hole and into the drain.
He was bleeding at his neck and groin, obviously from some sort of arterial I.V, there was also a trickle of blood coming from his nose. The bin beside him was full of hospital artifacts, I.V sharps, sticky monitor patches ( that had left their residue on his quiet chest) and the bed sheet that had been his shroud. It was obvious that he had been wrapped up as is, or as was. His body had scars, like he had lived pretty hard or at least pretty violent, one looked like a knife wound, old and thick on his torso. BAD was tattooed on his right arm in large gothic letters. More boyish than bad, the toe tag showed his birthday as 1984. There was no time to be squeamish as Keith motioned me closer to watch him make a swift cut along the collarbone, using stainless blunt hooks he began to dig around in search of the carotid. Once he got hold of the pale artery, twine was tied around it in a bow and the same was done with the jugular. Pink embalming fluid was then pumped into carotid, replacing the blood that exited the other valve in the jugular. Keith asked me to rub the fingers and hands to help the fluid get into the tips. I saw nicotine stains then tiny specks of blood appear. The sort of thing you get from finger prick blood tests.
"Diabetes, causing liver failure" Keith's gloved finger flipped the badboy’s lower lip to show me the yellow tinge.
I watched this not long dead man, barely out of his teens take on a more lively appearance, the coloured liquid doing it’s job of blood mimic.
Touching a dead body is strange, they are surprisingly cold.
I wanted to see him from the other side, so I made my way around the outside of the room, not wanting to get in the way of the living.
When I got to the other side of him I saw that on his left arm he had a Jesus tattoo, strangely enough they were in similar poses. For some reason that moment was a trigger for sadness. This young man, younger than Jesus, gone. Just gone. He was being mourned at that same moment, by someone. I then felt compelled to wash the blood from his nose and lip, using the bleach filled sponge, I tried to clean him up. He kept bleeding though, the formalydne pump acting like an artificial heart up there on the shelf.
Slowly his blood emptied from his body, running down the table into the crisp white ceramic sink.
I watched as his jugular outlet was closed to built up pressure in the body, pushing formaldyne into the smaller vessels of the circulatory system.
After which I watched Keith aspirate the abdomen with a tool that looks like a spear, sucking out gas and organ contents.
At times I could see it poking his torso wall from the inside, that was the only time I winced a little. Just a little.
It was getting late and the smell of bleach was staring to give me a headache, so I watched a bit longer then thanked everyone for the experience ( in my head I thanked the dead too).
I took off my scrubs, threw out my gloves, booties and mask. Put on my normal clothes and stepped back into my normal life.
Walking home I felt incredibly alive and very mortal, everything was crisp, as if all my senses had been sharpened. The people I saw on the street became galaxies of potential, all the faces more expressive, more interesting.
I walked slow, taking time to soak it all up, perhaps because I was scared that it would pass, that in a few days I would start to forget about my experience with Death and just how alive it had made me feel.
posted by D. at Thursday, January 27, 2005
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