Back From the Dead
March 3rd, 2005I know…it’s been months since I last posted. But what better a way to return from the “dead” than to describe my sobering morning at the coroner.
As part of another ICM focus experience, we had the opportunity to visit the LA County Coroner’s Office and watch the coroners there perform one or more autopsies.
All of us met in the lobby and were taken down to the basement of the building, where we were fitted with masks, gowns, booties, and gloves. As they led us into the hallway with the autopsy rooms, I was mentally preparing myself for my first ever encounter with a dead body (ones that weren’t embalmed, as in gross anatomy) — but little did I realize that once I walked through those double doors, bodies were strewn about the hallway worse than an overcrowded ER. And the first bodies I caught a gruesome glimpse of were not what I was prepared to see.
One woman clearly had had her autopsy already and was crudely sewn back up with some rope that looked like it was bought from a hardware store. The next one was an emaciated man with his knees bent up to his chest and a ghastly look on his face. And I couldn’t even tell whether the last body was of a man or woman since it had been so badly burned. It was a scene directly out of a gory hollywood movie, with so many mangled bodies and their cold blue flesh and eyes permanently closed. I almost felt that they’d soon get up and start moaning and limping around, kinda like the movie Shawn of the Dead. (I guess I should commend hollywood make-up directors for their ability to make the living look dead.)
We rounded a corner, and at this point our group — 3 guys and 3 girls — was just 3 guys now, as all the girls were too shocked to make it past the first few steps into the hallway. So we went and helped them along.
Once we were inside the autopsy room, a room where five autopsies were being carried out. An uninterested pathologist with no emotion on his face at all led us to the table we’d be at, and he started gave us a brief history on this middle aged black women he was about to do an autopsy on. He started and for the next 10 minutes slashed into the woman’s chest with the classic “inverted Y” strokes, and he began digging in and throwing around her organs like it was a chop shop. This was far from careful, precise surgery. There was no fine dissection here, just big circular saws cutting through peoples’ skulls. In the end what was left was just a hollowed out cage of a body with half a head.
After about 2 hours the smell was getting to me, and so I left. It wasn’t exactly a sight I wanted to see, but I did appreciate the opportunity to learn that I never want to be a pathologist. And after visiting the gift shop (!)…I did end the day with a LA County Coroner’s t-shirt!