Mary Roach has a novel about human cadavers and it is fascinating. One of the take aways is the fact and law in the US that "you can donate your body to science, but you cannot dictate what is done with it".
Stiff! It's so good! My least favorite part was learning that when a cadaver's stomach rips open due to a buildup of gasses it sounds like a bowl of rice krispies.
My buddy worked as an EMT shortly after highschool (30 years ago). He told me that sometimes the build up of that gas causes dead bodies to fart. Like a motherfucker. Long, audible, flappers. And as an EMT, you are not allowed to laugh when they do that. Then when the smell hits, you are not allowed to cry.
I used to work Emergency medicine. I have never seen this happen. However most of the cases when someone died it was a freshly dead person (post trying to resuscitate, etc) and then moved to the morgue once family leaves. I could imagine once the bloat sets in things start "squeezing out".
What got me is when we did post mortem care. Multiple staff members help move the body from the hospital stretcher to this special stretcher that covers the body when you take it in the elevator and hallway to the morgue to preserve dignity. There is nothing like the sound of a dead head hitting the cold metal morgue stretcher when you move the body from one stretcher to the other. I can still hear it when I think about it.
Then you go to the morgue and there is this little small lobby area and you "sign the patient in" and then take them to the next large room which h
Is a freezer and has minimal lighting (i guess its a save on electricity since everyone is dead in there, dark humor). But it scared all of us nurses and techs taking bodies down there.
Yeesh. Yeah, I've been around dead bodies of loved ones. They're cold af and weird. Your experience sounds as interesting as it does creepy lol.
The body my buddy was talking about in this instance, was an elderly fellow who ran out of patience waiting for the grim reaper, and took matters...
(TRIGGER WARNING - SELF HARM)
...into his own hands, and found great efficacy with a rope, a loop, and some height. He was not discovered immediately, but hadn't been in that state for long. Idk if EMTs would be the typical responders in this situation, but it was in a smaller community, distant from larger centres. 30 years later, buddy is a high level nurse, and got scooped by an air rescue team. Those guys only pick certain types of medical people, so it's quite an badge of honour/prestige to work in that field. Not that my buddy is the bragging type, which is why I'm talking about him on the internet. Fuckin guy was semi-retired by the time he was 45. Not that he brags about that either.
There were many parts of that book where I kept saying ewww out loud, but kept reading haha. It really is a fascinating book.
I really liked the mortician chapter. I learned a lot! I thought the crash test bodies were interesting as well. Honestly each chapter kept me highly interested and disgusted at the same time.
My favorite part was in the plane crash chapter when she describes humans and Dungeness crab as the two species that can never get enough of eating each other. God damn it, I really love eating Dungeness crab, but now I get to think about that passage when I do.
If it was donated to the military, sure. I agree that they could use the body however they wanted for research, but they SOLD the body and made profits. If it was my loved one, it wouldn't be about the bomb test, it them was selling it. Also, they donated it for alzheimer's research, not bomb research.
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u/Big-Maintenance2971 May 06 '26
Mary Roach has a novel about human cadavers and it is fascinating. One of the take aways is the fact and law in the US that "you can donate your body to science, but you cannot dictate what is done with it".