Have you ever attended an autopsy that surprised you in some way?

[chewbok]

I wonder why you need all that med school just to hack someone up..... Surely a butcher would do?

Chopping up doesn’t take a MD. Evaluating all the pieces and developing a coherent and legally defensible conclusion does.

 

[chewbok]

It's amazing how much odors factor into the experience of attending an autopsy. You'd think the fancy morgue ventilation would take care of that, but not even close! The air movement is usually sluggish enough that strong smells linger noticeably, I found. Putrefaction was the absolute worst. It stinks like rank shit. It gets into your hair, your clothing, everything. I remember carrying that scent around even after showering. I had to use vaseline or vapor rub on my nostrils to block it out (for the internal portion of the autopsy I would wear a respirator, thank god). I remember one case of a body of a homeless person found under a tarp under an overpass, dead for several days in the heat, his body was this greenish-black color, bloated with marbled veins and skin slippage, tongue protruding, eyes bulging. His nether regions were a seething mass of maggots. It looked like a horror show. And not surprisingly, the smell of putrefaction emanating from his decomposing body was unimaginable. The female pedestrian fatality in the white hooded jacket I described earlier - the one wearing the really stinky knee-high nylons - her foot smell, although extremely pungent and memorable in its own characteristic way, was a cinch to endure by comparison. That body was still "fresh" and there was no decomposition smell to it. I'd rather bury my face in that girl's stale nylons any day over getting my face even within a few inches of a putrified corpse in advanced stage of decomposition without a respirator!

Has anyone ever had to autopsy a fetus? I remember one case where we autopsied a stillborn fetus where the mother had birthed it herself many weeks premature at home. The fetus didn't arrive in the standard body bag but arrived at the morgue in a bucket-like container with a lid. It looked alien to me. The umbilical cord and placenta came with it, still attached. We confirmed the sex (a boy), which wasn't hard because there was a tiny penis. Everything was tiny - toes, fingers. The head and eyes seemed disproportionately large compared to the rest of the body. Freaky.

Vicks Vapo Rub under the nostrils does wonders.

 

[lechmich]

Chopping up doesn’t take a MD. Evaluating all the pieces and developing a coherent and legally defensible conclusion does.

You might have missed the sarcastic note of my reply I think...

 

[chewbok]

For starters, I can share some memorable ones from my own experience, having attended autopsies in the past (although I did not work specifically at a morgue or forensic lab):

I recall the case of a man who was found slumped on the shitter in his apartment, his belly full of fluid (and as it turns out, something else) and liver scarred by years of alcohol abuse. The most memorable event at his autopsy came early on when the morgue technician pressed on his swollen belly and the corpse promptly pooped out this disgusting black, extremely malorderous load right onto the autopsy table, reminiscent of toothpaste squeezed out of a tube! The autopsy showed his bowels were chocker-block loaded with digested blood, due to backup of pressure in the main vein draining to the liver, causing a rupture of a vessel in his stomach. His liver looked very abnormal, shrivelled to one half the normal size for a man his age and weight. The pathologist who bread-loafed the liver into sections showed me the immense scarring or "fibrosis" that had been the culprit of the high pressures.

***

In another case, there was an emaciated heroin addict I remember well because he was completely naked and smelled strongly of stale urine when his body bag was opened. His complexion was chalky and his skin was literally hanging off his bones. He looked exactly how you might expect a junkie to look, except for being exceptionally well endowed (!) with a horridly long and flaccid, snakelike penis that had innumerable needle tracts in it. He also had matted pubic hair that looked gross, like it hadn't been washed in days. The guy had evidently treated his cock like a pin cushion during life, to feed his addiction. It felt weird watching the photographer take all those close-ups of his pock-marked manhood, tagged with an adhesive scale and case number stuck to its tip - a sorry footnote to a sorry life.

***

Lastly, there's the woman I recall vividly because she was attractive and wearing tight fashionable jeans and boots and a cute white jacket with faux-fur lined hood around the border, looking like she was out for a night clubbing, who had not been paying attention crossing a busy downtown road, and that's how it all ended suddenly for her in the wee hours of the morning. It was raining steadily (not pouring though) and of course the body had lain exposed for some time even though someone eventually decided to cover it with a plastic tarpaulin. Her clothing was still damp by the time of her autopsy the next morning, and when her boots were removed at autopsy we could see one leg was clearly broken, but underneath the boots she had on these very flimsy knee-high nylons (skin tone and very sheer so you could easily see her cute pedicure) but they smelled like death because the moisture had gotten inside the boots and a bacterial orgy had obviously broken out. The odor was extremely pungent, similar to the smell of wet cabbage or cornchips, but with an acrid intensity of the mustiness so that there was no doubt about what I was actually smelling. Embarrassingly for me, I got hard just from the spontaneous physiologic reaction to the strong smell, enough to grow a bulge which threatened to get noticed, so at an opportune moment, I quietly excused myself to go to the washroom, rubbed it out, and returned to the autopsy as if nothing had happened.

I'd kill to get access to the photos from those autopsies (and those photos almost certainly exist in some archive or warehouse), but sadly, all I have are my memories to hold onto

Are you in the post life business? Serious question

 

[chewbok]

You might have missed the sarcastic note of my reply I think...

Yep. I do that often ( placing my other foot in my mouth)…

 

[K.I.T.T.]

Considering autopsies are usually performed by credentialed coronors within specialized facilities or hospitals, I'd assume that very few people have had to opportunity to see one. I can't imagine it's possible to even accidentally walk into one.

 

[FightsForEntertainment]

Considering autopsies are usually performed by credentialed coronors within specialized facilities or hospitals, I'd assume that very few people have had to opportunity to see one. I can't imagine it's possible to even accidentally walk into one.

Im going for forensic pathology, and let me tell you. No one sees the dead body til after the pathologist looks over and confirms any defects or suspicions marks or wounds

 

[FightsForEntertainment]

For those that have worked autopsies , do you recall any cases that surprised you in a way that was peculiar or memorable?

I'm especially thinking of "fresh" bodies [in relative terms, of course] that might seem outwardly much closer to their walking, breathing brethren than to the putrefied, bloated bodies that share autopsy room space at times. It's those outwardly "normal" bodies (ignoring gore from trauma or soiling from the environment) that sometimes harbor the biggest surprises.

Was it a unique tattoo perhaps? A sensitive body piercing? Or a surprising choice of underwear worn by the victim? Maybe it was something else revealing or intimate that the dead person would not have wanted anyone else to know about, ranging from a peculiar body odor you encountered which you didn't expect, to something as embarrassing as a male corpse exhibiting "angel lust" (postmortem erection), or the proper, well-to-do appearing individual who secretly harbored pubic lice?

Please post your contributions, including any juicy or sordid details.

The only bad part is the smell, and only for the first 3 months or so. I have been doing forensic pathology for a long time now and ive seen some crazy things. The worst ones are when the parents are waiting for you to give an autopsy report and you already know their kid went through unimaginable hell. I live in a big city were tons happens we just had a kid brought in here last week for drowning in the lake. Job is not for the weak, and might seem easy or fun til your the one, hands deep in a rotten body trying to get bullet casings or measuring stab wounds for court. I wish it was legal to record, i would have so many videos for you guys but its against policy and id lose my license.

 

[cheesegrate]

The only bad part is the smell, and only for the first 3 months or so. I have been doing forensic pathology for a long time now and ive seen some crazy things. The worst ones are when the parents are waiting for you to give an autopsy report and you already know their kid went through unimaginable hell. I live in a big city were tons happens we just had a kid brought in here last week for drowning in the lake. Job is not for the weak, and might seem easy or fun til your the one, hands deep in a rotten body trying to get bullet casings or measuring stab wounds for court. I wish it was legal to record, i would have so many videos for you guys but its against policy and id lose my license.

Yeah, quite true. I don't have your experiences, but the autopsy of the stillborn fetus I observed on my rotation was eye-opening and sobering.

 

[cheesegrate]

Are you in the post life business? Serious question

No, my experience was limited to a month-long rotation in forensic pathology in a large metropolitan region. I assisted with some of the autopsies but only under the direct supervision/direction of the staff pathologists and fellows working there. It was high volume so I got to see a breadth of cases. I felt I got a decent exposure to the profession. I am just interested to know others' experiences on the job. Some of the example cases I described were memorable (to me at least) because there was something unusual about a case that stood out to me or caught my attention - even something as mundane as a dead girl's really pungent foot odor or watching a corpse poop on the autopsy table, lol - that ended up etching itself into my memory or provoking a visceral response in me. Hence this thread.

 

[D.O.A.]

I wonder why you need all that med school just to hack someone up..... Surely a butcher would do?

I'm a butcher by trade from a long long time ago, although more of a slaughterman who knows primal cuts. If you gave me a thread and a needle and told me to put a cow back together it's basically gonna be a frankencow and it will require a lighting bolt to revive it. I'm not going to make small incisions to examine shit I'm going to plow a knife from neck to groin and pull out its stomach in about 20 seconds

 

[Milfhunter]

My mum was 14 years old when she experienced that. It was after lunch and she did barf when they took out the brain on a subject.

 

[chewbok]

I'm a butcher by trade from a long long time ago, although more of a slaughterman who knows primal cuts. If you gave me a thread and a needle and told me to put a cow back together it's basically gonna be a frankencow and it will require a lighting bolt to revive it. I'm not going to make small incisions to examine shit I'm going to plow a knife from neck to groin and pull out its stomach in about 20 seconds

So, honestly, have you ever gotten bored and made any frankencow things? I guess you don’t have suture material and needle clamps handy but I can envision all sorts of interesting things.

We practiced suturing on an processed cow tongues but I can see having a ball in a slaughter house creating things under the guise of suture practice…

 

[chewbok]

No, my experience was limited to a month-long rotation in forensic pathology in a large metropolitan region. I assisted with some of the autopsies but only under the direct supervision/direction of the staff pathologists and fellows working there. It was high volume so I got to see a breadth of cases. I felt I got a decent exposure to the profession. I am just interested to know others' experiences on the job. Some of the example cases I described were memorable (to me at least) because there was something unusual about a case that stood out to me or caught my attention - even something as mundane as a dead girl's really pungent foot odor or watching a corpse poop on the autopsy table, lol - that ended up etching itself into my memory or provoking a visceral response in me. Hence this thread.

So you are in the life maintenance, not post-life morgue or mortuary business. I’m retired but spent most of my professional life as a Flight Nurse/paramedic and HEMS pilot. I’m definitely in the maintain life field. Once dead my patients became someone else’s responsibility. That’s part of my attraction to GG in addition to the really cool members.

There is no gore in emergency medicine. A salvageable patient is just that, a patient that the practitioner feels has a shot at survival. That makes looking at wounds an intellectual exercise…what effect does the injury have on the patients outcome? Where does the injury fall in the patients treatment priority and what is the best method of treatment? No gore, just problems that need to be prioritized and solved.

Once a patient is dead all bets are off. Now one can consider the horrendous nature of the injuries and the mindset of the patient as they went through the injury process. That’s when it becomes gore and all the emotions come out.

I don’t know of anyone in my field that doesn’t compartmentalize traumatic patients this way. It’s not possible to see “gore” and still provide effective treatment.

If you don’t mind my asking, what is your medical role now? There are only a few academic situations requiring a 30 day forensic exam pathology rotation. It sounds like a post graduate clinical for forensic pathology or perhaps an advanced criminal justice program.

Either way it would clearly give you insight that the mere mortals on GG like me would enjoy hearing about. Imagine if we had an actual trained and practicing forensic pathologist in our ranks…ficking cool. Even having an advanced student of CJ type, like the Dr of CJ in training Brian Kohlberger would be a great resource for GG.

Sorry to out you on the spot but what are you?

 

[hedgerow]

I wish it was legal to record, i would have so many videos for you guys but its against policy and id lose my license.

come on, can't you sneak one or two vids for us here at gg? I promise we won't rat on you, and you'd be everyone's new fav friend.

 

[D.O.A.]

So, honestly, have you ever gotten bored and made any frankencow things? I guess you don’t have suture material and needle clamps handy but I can envision all sorts of interesting things.

We practiced suturing on an processed cow tongues but I can see having a ball in a slaughter house creating things under the guise of suture practice…

I remember a Serbian guy telling me what pitchka means in his language while he was holding the pitchka of a cow he cut off to show me. Then he threw it at another guy.

 

[chewbok]

I remember a Serbian guy telling me what pitchka means in his language while he was holding the pitchka of a cow he cut off to show me. Then he threw it at another guy.

He tossed you sloppy seconds. I had to look that up. Pretty ugly. Makes me wonder why he bothered removing it. Seems like something they would leave to the grinder and label as “beef product” in hot dogs and bologna.

Tell me he didn’t share an old family recipe and invite you over for supper.,,

 

[D.O.A.]

He tossed you sloppy seconds. I had to look that up. Pretty ugly. Makes me wonder why he bothered removing it. Seems like something they would leave to the grinder and label as “beef product” in hot dogs and bologna.

Tell me he didn’t share an old family recipe and invite you over for supper.,,

When you skin a cow it's all coming off.

We used to boil tongues, sweetbreads from sheep whatever, some old wog would reach into his bloodstained apron and pull out a masterfoods seasoning bottle and we'd eat on the job. You're supposed to sterilize your knife after every cut in a boiling water pot but that was usually full of hotdogs cooking

 

[chewbok]

When you skin a cow it's all coming off.

We used to boil tongues, sweetbreads from sheep whatever, some wog would reach into his bloodstained apron and pull out a masterfoods seasoning bottle and we'd eat on the job. You're supposed to sterilize your knife after every cut in a boiling water pot but that was usually full of hotdogs cooking

I am more of a “…I love the sausage, but don’t tell me what’s in it…” kind of guy.

No level of seasoning, smoking, broiling, boiling or any other cooking technique would make me knowingly eat cow vagina. Call me picky.

This one? Seriously Let me know. I want to try it. I kill 10-15 deer a year here in Mississippi. We also live on crawfish, catfish, rabbits, dove, duck and the occasional squirrel, raccoon and possum. Always looking for new seasoning.

Anything to make the coon and possum tasty would be awesome b

 

[D.O.A.]

I am more of a “…I love the sausage, but don’t tell me what’s in it…” kind of guy.

No level of seasoning, smoking, broiling, boiling or any other cooking technique would make me knowingly eat cow vagina. Call me picky.

Didn't eat that. We ate the tongues, cheeks, tail and basically anything else we could cook on the job. We had a grill in the break room for when export cuts went "missing".