Boy do I hate decomps. We had a case on Friday of a man that died in his house alone and rotted there for a couple of weeks. Needless to say, he was quite smelly when we got him. He was an alcoholic and apparently died at his kitchen table in front of a glass of scotch. The moral of the story here: if you are going to die, make sure that someone knows where you are so that your body can be found before it gets too far along in its decomposition.

I guess I will use this opportunity to try and explain decomposition the best I can. I probably have talked a little about decomp in a few of my previous posts, but I will try and be more thorough now. The first noticeable thing (besides the freakin' smell) is the green appearance overall. Some areas are a dark, almost blackish, green and some areas are a lighter green. Green is the color change that the red blood goes through when it breaks down. Then there is what is referred to as "skin slippage." The skin basically sloughs off in the direction of gravity. There can even be what is known as degloving. For example, in the case on friday, the skin around the ankle and foot slipped off in such a way that it was hanging off the toe inside out. It sort of reminds you of a snake shedding its skin. If the body is found on its back, then the skin on the chest won't slip as much, but if you press on it, you can feel air bubbles underneath. The gases that are given off by the bacteria that are eating away at the insides cause the abdomen to swell. Also, most decomp faces remind you of something you would see in a horror movie. Usually the eyes are not very recognizable and the green decomp material covers what may be left. When the head is on the head block, the jaw hangs wide open because there are not muscles to keep it closed (Rigor mortis usually occurs first in the jaw in a fresh body). Any hair that is on the head falls out quite easily (and usually takes chunks of skin with it). Now comes the fun part of opening the body up. The organs basically liquify as they decompose. The brain is the first organ to become unrecognizable because it is soft to begin with. It has the consistency of cake batter and actually kind of looks either like cake batter or yogurt. All the organs are kind of "gloppy" and mushy, which makes the autopsy very difficult. Even after the examination of the gross anatomical findings are done, the microscopic analysis usually doesn't yield too much information because the decomp occurs at a cellular level as well. Recognizable blood is usually difficult to obtain in a decomp. What is found is a a kind of yellowish decomp liquid inside the body cavity. It actually kind of reminds you of movie theater popcorn butter (it is the talent of a pathologist and morgue personnel to be able to describe things in terms of food - you will never look at food the same way). To sum things up, decomps are really messy and smelly. The smell is best described as putrid. It is a smell that you will never forget. Whenever there is a decomp case, the smell remains on me and in my nose for the rest of the day. I can conjure up the smell in my mind as I type. I have gotten used to it, but it still is not a smell that I enjoy or will ever forget.

If you don't know where I am located, you can find out fairly easily after this entry. We had a plane crash today. A small two-engine plane crashed into a pond killing three people inside. The pilot's face was pretty much nonexistant, which is mostly due to the trauma. However, the investigators did have to fight the turtles in order to collect the body. They ate the eyes and were in the process of "giving kisses" to what was left of the face. Because this was a plane crash, the FAA has to conduct their own side investigation, so tissue and fluid samples were collected to be sent to their labs. Other than that, there would be no real way to tell the difference between a plane crash and a car crash. Three words: Blunt Force Trauma. This was a relatively slow moving plane at a low altitude, so the bodies weren't too mangled.

Yesterday, we had a stillborn baby. The mother was about 20 weeks pregnant, but didn't know she was pregnant. She went to the bathroom and it just kind of popped out. A fairly quick examination was done just to make sure that there was no foul play. Yesterday there was also a guy who was sitting in a car window Dukes of Hazards style and fell out. He was probably drunk. I wouldn't be surprised if the driver was drunk either. A good way to arrange a visit to your local morgue is to get behind the wheel after doing some drinking.

Speaking of visiting morgues, if you actually do visit a morgue (vertically, not horizontally) to watch an autopsy, make sure you eat before you go. Most people think that they are going to see some gruesome things that will make them naseous, so they skip breakfast. Big mistake. You will be standing for a couple of hours and your blood sugar will drop as the morning turns into afternoon. If you then see something that makes you a bit squeamish, you will faint. A visitor today had to be walked out because she started to bob back and forth. Someone walked her out before she dropped.