Going, Going, Gone

For those weak of heart or stomach, you might not want to read this. For people who continually ask me if I've seen a dead body today, the answer would be yes.

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We learned how to process a body at the morgue today, but it wasn't much new information for me. I mean, taking hinge lifts and fingernail scrapings are kind of self explanatory. Although it was good experience to be around more dead people.

I like dead people. Not like… like them, like them, but… find nothing wrong or creepy about them being dead. We saw a gentleman this afternoon that had been killed in a motorcycle accident. His left arm and right wrist had compound fractures and possibly his neck or chin or something was broken… I'm not sure, but something was certainly not right about it.

We took his elimination prints and hair standards to learn how. Fingerprinting him was not too difficult. I actually got some really nice looking prints from him and took a palm print as well. This was way easier than last time. I imagine you get better with practice of how to manipulate a hand that's still in rigor.

There was talk about getting to see the old guy they fished out of the river after 3 days of submersion, but that didn't happen. I feel like that's something I need to experience. I mean, I'd like to confirm that I can handle something that "icky". I'd like to know the smells and such and be able to see seriously bloated individuals and know what skin slippage is like. But, alas, we did not.

Some people were complaining about the smell in the morgue. I didn't think it was gross. As a matter of fact, I really thought it smelled like cooked cabbage. I kinda wanted halupki. It was like Thanksgiving at the morgue.

Isn't it weird that both of the times I've been in the morgue I've made references to things smelling like food? This might explain why I'm not a "foodie" like some of the people that I know, eh? I sometimes feel that I've gotten the short end of the stick in the smelling/tasting department because I don't get as much pleasure out of food as most people. Or so it seems. I guess in this situation my deficiencies come in handy.

So, the only thing I've confirmed from this is that the morgue smells delicious!

Just wait until I see my first decomp case. I bet it smells like brownies and fresh baked bread! Okay, wishful thinking. Although, I'm hopeful that I'll find it less horrible than some of my colleagues.

So, the morgue was not too exciting, but one of the lectures today was. Topic? Auto-erotic deaths.

Okay, I've had lectures on this before, but never have they been as funny as the one that our CST gave today. She cracked me up, and quite possibly it was only funny if you were there, but I think this quote is humorous enough for everyone, so I will share:

"Don't use an electric sander to masturbate. It's baaaaaad. Just, you know, masturbate normally."

The lecture also included video footage of people who set up cameras to film themselves doing these acts and their safety devices failed resulting in accidental deaths. Most compressed their necks too far, passed out unconscious leaning on the rope, and then their bodies couldn't get enough oxygen and they died of hypoxia in muscle spasms. So, I actually watched people die today. That's something we never saw in school.

So, week one of crime scene school down, two more to go.

I like it so far, although I'm not learning too many new things yet. It's also nice to meet people from other departments and other labs… and spend all my money going out to lunch with them.

End Blog.