Anyone experienced dead bodies?Update photos/home #149

[mangled]

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I know exactly what you mean.

from someone who understands.

Em

 

[Tuffoldhen]

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I also was a licensed EMT years ago and dealt with quite a few dead bodies. I called it my growing up stage as to what real life was about and dealt with it. It certainly is not the movie version!!!

 

[Beekissed]

I'm a hospice nurse and death is my milieu. I have to bathe the body after death and prepare it for family viewing and transport to the funeral home. Some of our patients die from things that, unfortunately, causes their bodies to practically rot while they are still alive and the smells can be pretty bad. Sometimes the fluids gush out when you turn them over to bathe and change linens. These fluids smell worse than nearly anything I've ever smelled in my 17 years of nursing...even a GI bleed.

I also use the Vicks trick and try not to think too hard about it. It is just a vessel and the contents are gone. The body deserves our respect and gentle handling until it is out of our care. We are extremely gentle with the handling of the bodies and even talk to the departed as we do so.

I know TV sensationalizes these things and almost turns it into something gruesome and even mysterious, but it would benefit everyone to have to deal with the dying and dead of this world. It would give you a more practical and sensible view on death as a normal part of living, the end of a cycle and inevitable as day following night.

 

[Tuffoldhen]

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Wonderfully said!! Thank you!!

 

[noodleroo]

.'..end of a cycle and inevetable as day following night.' is an excellent way to put it. Death doesnt seem so scary anymore to me; I don't think that death of the body is the end...

 

[Tuffoldhen]

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It's not a scary thing, your right, it's the ending of a life on earth.

 

[Turkeyrangler]

This past spring my old boss came by asking me to come with her to a friends house who hadn't responded to her phone calls for 5 days. I had a bad feeling just getting in her car as I rode the two miles to the house. I checked the garage and saw the car was there, but had no response at the door. I was a first responder in the past and once in a while we do get a stinker. Sorry, but that is what they are called. I guess you get kinda callused after a while and these words are used to make it easier I guess. All the doors were locked except for the back door. My friend attempted to go in first, but I caught a whiff, stopped her and told her to stay outside. Once you've smelled it you know what to expect. I went in and found the guy on the couch. He had been there for at least a few days. I'm pretty sure it was a peaceful death in his sleep. It was later rules natural causes. It was fairly cool so he wasn't the worst I've seen, just the most recent. Still it was bad enough. I went back outside, dialed 911 and asked that a sheriff and coroner could come the the address. The 911 operator asked me to check for a pulse. I told her it was way past that point. Hope I don't have to see another one anytime soon. Been at the death beds of a number of family and friends, but this is always so much harder.

 

[EweSheep]

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Wonderfully said!! Thank you!!

I agree!

It is more of another chink of experience for me. TV always sugarcoat things and I dont see anything regarding to natural composition in the body without refigeration. I am aware of body "explosion" but its hard to say for sure at what point they will burst. Again TV really sensationalize things. It was NOT the same for our animals when our chickens die and our horses lay still....its so different.

What I am seeing is the REAL thing....shocking at first because I am so used to seeing embalmed love ones, not someone we know as neighbors (very casually), and I will miss his small talks and his rambling about his illnesses. He was really sick, that is for sure. I did remember him trying to mow a small yard for four hours which it would take someone at least half an hour. That is how much he had to struggle. Until he "disappeared", we thought he was in jail or moved away from home. Alas, it was not.

It was well said...I could not agree with it even more, Beekissed.

 

[KinderKorner]

I stopped by my moms work about a month ago to tell her something. She told me to wait in the nursing station which I did. There was a guy and a nurse standing over a bed which had feet sticking up in my direction. I was wondering what they were doing but didn't think much of it. A while later the guy wheeled the bed out, blanket covering it. It took me a few seconds to realize holy crap that is a dead body. It freaked me out quite a bit. Don't know why. But it was weird seeing them stand over the old man, and then realizing he he was dead.

Mom didn't make it better when she got back and told me he was really scary dead body because he died with his mouth all twisted and eyes open, plus all the tubes and hanging stuff that were attached to him.

She still hasn't let me live down the look of horror on my face. lol

 

[debilorrah]

On an off note, did you all know that creamted remains come in different colors? I have seen pink, black (not an African American), sand colored, green and blue tinted. I used to work for a Mortuary. Strange how people come in different colors when cremated that has NOTHING to do with their race.