Last Thoughts

I’ve been through, seen it, and smelled it all. I’ve had a bag of urine explode in my face; I’ve had vomit ruin suits; I’ve had unidentified liquids drip into my gloves and kept my cool. Why? Cause that’s what I signed up for, and what I expect. This call brought my record to an end. A call from the Medical Examiners office had a body that was heading to a funeral home over 1 hour away. I told the office who I was there for and the room fell silent. “You’re not going far, are you?” That gives you an idea of what it about to unfold. I went to get the body, but first I have to fill out paperwork, and identify the body via toe tag. Before the bag was even opened I could smell it. A smell so foul it could peel paint off the wall. I tried to read the tag but it was covered in something... Maggots. Yes, the body had decomposed so much and was exposed to the elements it had time for bugs to feast. So I loaded the man and off I went with all the windows down going as fast as I could down the highway with a mask and vaseline under my nose I made it to the home with lunch sitting comfortably in my stomach. I prepared to transfer the body from my stretcher to the table, but curiosity got the better of me. How bad could the body be? It’d be one hell of a story to tell the other apprentices. Mistake. The man was born with white skin. Skin so white that the purest of snow would seem dark. Open the bag and it was clear there was a change. The whitest part of his body was the maggots and larva enjoying their meals. Black as a crayon this man was; laying in a bag with rotting skin and any other horror movie-body discovering scene you could think of. To my credit I did not vomit. My sandwich and fruit snacks from home stayed put, but they almost came up. The bag couldn’t zip up quick enough. After he was on the table I packed up my equipment as fast as I could and left. 0 days since our last incident.

The death of a loved one is certain a tragedy. An emotional rollercoaster that you can’t get off of. So when you’re a bit “testy” I can understand. However, yelling at us, telling us we “should do this...” or “Do that...” is not advised. We have procedure, protocol, and state laws that must be followed. Being surprised we won’t be spending the night in the embalming room with your loved one is not something you’d expect. Granted it is customary (to the best of my knowledge) that Jews have a procedure where a body is watched over night. If you request it, or make arrangements I’m sure it will happen but yelling at 2 men who are there to pick up a body will not get you what you want. A safety precaution for us is wearing gloves. Simple latex are most common as they are cheap and effective. Getting angry at me for putting gloves on will not change anything, regardless of whether or not your “sister has no communicable diseases.” I’m sure it’s true, but we’re still putting on our gloves. After being chastised, ridiculed, ordered, and insulted, you ask us to “be gentle” with your sister. I’m not sure what people think we do, but I assure you we don’t throw bodies around, steal their belongings, or do anything disrespectful... Unless you’re not nice...

I met my partner at a pretty fancy apartment building. A door-man to greet me, and quiet elevator, and clean hallways that lead straight to a very dirty apartment on the top floor. I met a police officer that was on-scene and my partner filled me in. A 5′5 elderly woman weighing about 300 pounds that died on the toilet. Just another day... After asking the family to step outside for a moment we started to plan on how to get her off the toilet, pull her pants up so we don’t get the stretcher “dirty” and do it in a timely fashion. The rubiks cube of removals. With hardly enough room to peel a grape in, we squeezed ourselves in and got to work. After shifting her body enough to pull her pants up we picked her up enough to put her on the stretcher. That is until of course a nugget of poop fell of the floor. Staring at it for a very long 10 seconds my partner very nonchalantly declared, “Oh look. A turd.” Another 5 seconds passed before he grabbed toilet paper to pick it up and throw it in the bowl. We loaded her up and headed to the funeral home.

Skin slip. Not a pleasant thing and can make my job a living hell. After a while the body will reach a state in decomposition where the top layers of skin can fall off with a simple brush of the hand. Yes, this will get graphic and very gross. Ask anyone in the business and they’ll tell you all about skin slip. Few things are worse in the world. A call in the city sent us to an apartment where granny hadn’t been seen in a week, and a smell was coming from her apartment. 2 and 2 together, we have a bad decomp body. Opening the door; the first wave hit me right in the face and made me gag, and it takes a lot for me to gag. After braving the smell we walked in and saw her. A tiny old woman on the couch who’d been dead for at least a week. We grabbed our heavy duty gloves and began working. In the position she was in, the only way she was leaving was if we wrapped her in a sheet on the floor and put her on the stretcher like a cocoon. With everything in place we picked her up. Unfortunately she slipped out of our hands and the grossest thing I have ever seen to this very day happened. Her arms from the bicep to her fingers, and legs from the knee caps to her toes came off in our hands. Sounds gross? It was. As she slipped out of our hands, her head dragged on the couch and the back of her head came off like a latex halloween mask. Together in unison my partner and I gasped, breathed in the new smell and both threw up. Like I said in a previous post; We are still human. With police outside the door, we heard them start to gag as well. We stepped out onto the balcony for fresh air though that did very little. As quickly as we could we ran back in with breath held and finished wrapping her in the cocoon and put her in the bag. We put her in my hearse and off I went for the 10 miles drive in rush hour with all windows open and AC blasting.

No. Not the age, nor the time. A short hand way of describing his weight. 700-800 pounds. A lovely early summer morning where nothing could go wrong. I woke up, had a nice shower and a wonderful breakfast. Feeling great and ready for the day, I was almost excited when I got a call to head to a house removal. I was told the man was at least 500 lbs. How wrong they were. I showed up to the house before my partner and was met by 2 police officers. Introductions blah blah blah... As I was heading in, my partner showed up and we went in together. A cluttered house, or course, leading to a room down the hall with the smell of death. (Yes. Death has a smell.) I turned the corner and my eyes met a mountain of human. This was NOT 500 lbs. This was 700-800 pounds of obesity. It wasn’t a wonder how he died. The only thing I could do to stop from crying was laugh. How were we going to get this man out the door? This was not going to be a 2 person job. This was an all hands on deck kind of call. We called 2 more employees, 5 firefighters, and 3 EMTs from a commercial ambulance service. It was a group effort just to move the man. A half hour of planning, and a half hour of executing. Literally taking doors off their hinges, moving coffee tables, chairs, desks, dinner tables, TVs and anything else in the way, we finally got him on a stretcher and out the door. Backing a hearse up to the porch out back and everyone heaving him into it. Thanking the fire fighters, EMTs and cops, we headed to the funeral home down the street. It took the 4 of us to pull him out of the hearse and on to an elevator where we were met by another employee. We got him on and pressed “Down.” The elevator didn’t move. There was way over 1000 lbs on that slap of metal. All but one of us got off and the elevator moved. We finally got him on a table just in time for me to get another call. Much easier though.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief, often referred to as DABDA are the categories people generally fall under while coping and dealing with grief; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. It isn't a concrete list that people transition from one to the other in the exact order, and only improve. One can relapse from 'acceptance', and within hours, go right back to 'denial.' This particular call was the most intense case of 'denial' I have ever witnessed. The sudden death, of an already sick man, was too much for his sister to handle. (There is no shame in her thoughts and actions, by the way.) We walked into the apartment and his sister asked if we were from the hospital, because her brother is "having a hard time waking up." She refused to let us take his body if we were going to take it to a funeral home. She DEMANDED we bring him to the hospital, even though the paramedics pronounced him, and the medical examiner declined to take the body. Still, she demanded we take him to the hospital. While my partner talked with the woman, I called my boss and asked what we should do. Obviously, we weren't leaving without the body. Just looking at the man you knew he was dead. His face was purple, he had blood pooling in his mouth, and was not breathing. There's no denying it, he was dead. We still checked pulses, heart beats, and chest rise. Again... Dead. My frustrated partner told the woman to put her hand on his own chest to show her he had a heart beat, then put her hand on her brother so she could tell the difference. Once she "accepted" his death, she left the room and we got right to work. A 300 lbs man, with fluids begging to pour out. We wrapped his face with a cloth, wrapped him in a sheet and put him on the stretcher. We walked out of the house with him on the stretcher and not 5 feet away from the door, we heard the sister leave "acceptance" and scream. She hit DABD all at once. Everything except "acceptance." We loaded the man into the hearse and my partner stayed out in the freezing cold to talk to this unconsolable woman for 15 minutes. She followed us to the funeral home and ran to speak with the director. Done.

Some nursing homes can have similar conditions. A foul smell of dried urine, vomit, and poorly cleaned shit stains on the floor. THIS "nursing home" (do notice the quotations) is something quite special however. With no elevators of any kind, a removal from this mismanaged home is not the normal 1-man job as most nursing homes require, but a 2-man job. I got there before my partner could arrive so as to survey the area and plan the easiest exit. I met with the nurse on duty and she brought me to the room. Behind this cardboard-thin door I heard a man screaming incoherent sentences, aside from the occasional, "Fuck you! You asshole! You're a fucking cunt, do you know this?!" Great... I asked the nurse if he was going to be a problem to which she casually responded, "Oh just ignore him. He's strapped to his bed in the corner." STRAP TO HIS BED?! What the fuck kind of home is this? She opened the door and I saw the strapped down man. I think he meant to insult me but his speech was slurred so much he might as well have told me my hair looked great and I wouldn't have known the difference. His dead roommate was behind a curtain and in his bed. Roughly 180-200 pounds, not a problem IF THERE WAS AN ELEVATOR!! Nothing says "enjoy your day" quite like carrying a 200 pound man down 3 flights of stairs. I followed the nurse to fill out the needed paper work and talked along the way asking about the strapped man. "We have a few of those. This place is really more of a psych-ward more than a nursing home." I don't know why I didn't think of it before but it all makes perfect sense. Every door is locked and alarmed including the main door, beds with straps, a terrible smell, and a man calling someone a "fucking cunt"... How could this be news to me? My partner finally arrived and we went straight to work. Grabbing the equipment and gloves we ran upstairs and loaded the man with the nurse. I have no problem with someone trying to help, I welcome it in fact, but when you are a distraction and get in the way, I feel the need to kick to the point of infertility. Trying to concentrate on maneuvering a dead man through hallways and down stairs, the last things I want to hear are questions about my job. "So what's the craziest place you've removed a body from?" "What's the strangest call?" Lady, they're one in the same, and the story continues with each passing second. We couldn't leave fast enough.

This happened long before I even knew about tumblr, but it gets more laughs and sympathy than any other story told. Another late night call to an elderly trailer park. We pulled up and saw a ramp which is ALWAYS a good sign because we may not need the house stretcher (in this case we didn't). Just another "easy" removal. We walked in to check the body and plan the best escape route. (A straight shot from the room to the door is the perfect late night call.) So we grab our stretcher from the hearse and headed on in. We did our usual "It's best to leave the room while we do this..." Luckily they did because the next 5 minutes would have made them faint. We took off the top sheets she was covered in, did the quick inspection for jewelry or any valuables, and we started. Usually we'll wrap the body in the bottom sheet of the bed and slide them, or roll them on the stretcher. One side went up as normal, but the other side was resisting. I figured it was caught on the frame of the mattress and a little more effort would release it. It wasn't the mattress. 3 words: Urine Drainage Bag. Yes, the hidden bag came flying at me and as it does in every movie, cartoon, and bad-day story, it flew to head-level and exploded all over me and the body. Oh joy! Nothing says "easy removal" like being covered in dead-woman piss. With the family outside the door I can't scream or say "That's disgusting!" nor can my partner laugh. Both in hysterical horror we plan our escape. We'll finish with the body and I'll run like hell past the family. I removed my gloves and ran out the door shouting "Sorry for you loss!" as I bolted to the hearse. By the time my partner got back in I was sitting in nothing but my underwear with my suit and shoes in the back. Dripping in urine we drove with the windows down, oh yeah, it was winter by the way so by the time I got home I was a pissicle. 

When I did my very first removal I was told to "never think of the person as a person, but more as the frog you dissected in your biology class."  Today started off with a bang. A call down to the cape (Cape Cod) at 1:00 for a removal for a funeral home 70 miles away. The family was gracious enough, except for one of the daughters. Rude, and bossy. Understandable given the circumstances, but still, we're there to help so treating us like the preachers coming to your door is hardly appropriate. From start to finish it took 4 hours. After I got home and buried my face in my pillow for an hour, my phone went off again. Off to a house a half hour away. Easy. Got dressed and headed out. This house was beautiful! It was big, but just big enough to fit a small family comfortably. We introduced ourselves and headed in checking for any obstacles we'll have to face when moving our stretcher. Pictures lined the walls of a mother, father, and 2 children, all with happy and goofy smiles. This family traveled... A lot... What we walked into was something absolutely horrifying. No blood, guts, or gore. No disgusting features and bulging veins. Just a woman no older than 35. This was an acute death, no doubt. Her face showed signs of exhaustion and long nights. What looked like dried blood was at the corner of her mouth. It can be very difficult wrapping the body of a woman that could be the same age of an older sister. Did I mention she was pregnant? I realized that we weren't doing just 1 removal, but 2. We strapped her on the stretcher as quickly and gently as possible because we can't imagine what the family is feeling, nor do we want to. "Sorry for your loss" hardly seems enough to convey our feelings. This isn't a death to cause mourning. This is a death to cause great sorrow and unbearable sadness.

Call for a nursing home is Newton. As many nursing home removals do I needed to talk to the front desk worker, who was the night security guard. Usually they tend to panic when it comes to something different at night, for example a dead body leaving. I had to walk the "officer" through the procedure and tell him who he had to call. (His IQ probably matched the hourly wage of McDonalds employees.) Eventually I moved the hearse to the closest door to the room and walked upstairs to talk to the nurses and get my needed information. After grabbing my equipment I went into the room for the removal. The woman was over 100 years old, and probably weighed less than 100 lbs. "A nice easy removal to start the new year." I lifted her head to remove the pillow her stiff head was resting on when I heard the trapped breath escape her throat. It scared the ever living shit out of me. You're not expecting a corpse to breath, ya know? After the quick slide from her bed to my stretcher I strapped her in and wheeled her down the hallway back to the hearse. Off to the funeral home in Boston. After about 20 minutes of searching for the damn key I was able to let myself into the home, by the way, did I mention there was an alarm? Yes. I'd forgotten the code. After lots of "shit"s and "fuck"s I was able to find the code and plug it in to finally silence the neighborhood which I'm sure was wide awake considering someone's trying to break into a funeral home. (Who does that, by the way?) After the quick 10 minutes of inventory of her dentures, burial clothes, and the remaining paperwork, I was able to put her on the table and go back to bed.