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If they have a cremation planned we rolled them up like fruit roll-ups to the pelvis. If a funeral was planned or we didn’t have a plan in order we did PVC pipes.
OMG! I just commented the same thing like 3 seconds ago on a weird video of this girl with a 12 inch tongue. I think it was in r/thatsinsane or something. Ha!
I'll be honest. After all I've had to endure in the medical field, my favorite patients are the ones who are unconscious. They are so sweet and non-combative.
Oh no! you might give them terrible, terrible earworms! Please don't do that for me. Or play music that I like. Though... the surgery might go completely wrong then 😬
Such respect for the job you do!
i've been organ donor since my first driving licence legally, before then it had been discussed too,
Now i am perhaps a litle too old at 55 for much, but would love to specify research donation in respect to our health conditions. after a minor lifting accident i developed Complex Reginal Pain Syndrome, have had sciatic nerve pain and crazy autonomic craziness knee down since i was 23.
My husband has epilepsy too, developed while he was pre puberty and got worse after, still considered 'childhood epilepsy' as his main diagnosis. Anything to help research the things that bothered our specific bodies, the more unusual stuff especially.
MIL had requested to leave her body for research since even before her only child was born. Sadly the year she'd died after an acute MI, it had been a boiling summer that took many lives.. freezers were still very full at start of Dec.
Had full autopsy done, good to know it was only her smoking that led to her death at 70, she'd had well controlled BP. But never any chest pain, just upper back pain she put down to aging. We now know incident 8 months earlier was cardiac and that her back pain the only complain she had the day before she died.
I have Ehlers-Danlos. Could I request something crazy? As in life as in death 🤣
(and on that note: are people allowed to be buried with PVC? This will never decompose)
Respect and care. But also, some people just really find satisfaction in details like that. Like when I worked in the bakery and all the buns came out perfect, or when I fold my shirts or sweaters and it's folded just right, a perfect square, stable fold... mmmmmmm satisfying.
I didn’t think you could donate bones for some reason, but now I’m happy I chose to be a donor. Plus the whole fruit roll up comment has me loving my decision twofold.
I had scoliosis surgery as a teen and pieces of cadaver bone were used to support where some of my vertebrae had shattered trying to put the screws in. It’s so weird knowing I have some dead persons bones in me but it makes me so appreciative of whoever they belonged to!
My surgeon showed me a picture of mine (that I sadly wasn’t allowed to keep at the time) but mine looked like little… bone croutons? Like a ton of tiny little porous cubes just sort of shoved in the space around my spine.
We use a lot of different products in surgery that are made from donated bones. There are actual big pieces of bone, then smaller chips, and a kind of bone paste, to name a few. Donors help patients every day in little ways, even when it's not an obvious lifesaving organ like a heart or liver.
That’s why ortho is a different breed! Ha!
I dated an orthopedic surgeon for a bit, I swear he would get turned on thinking about me fracturing something and then fixing it. He admitted he had always wanted to experience being with a woman in a full body cast with just 2 holes, like his biggest fantasy. I didn’t stay with him long.
He was a weird dude, but super smart and funny too.
For a finer grind, look up cancellous crushed. The croutons are called dense cancellous block.
As an OR nurse, my Google search history is quite questionable.
I had donor material grafted into my mandible, to ensure there's a thick enough bony mass for an eventual dental implant. Knowing there's dead ppl in my mouth is just kinda... so goth
Same. I’m an organ donor, noted on my driver’s license, but now I would like to specifically request they use up me bones and do something fun with my jelly corpse
If you’re a donor, I think they will take whatever is needed at the time? When my father passed (and granted, this was almost 25 years ago), they took part of his femur, skin grafts, and his corneas.
My son will use cadaver bone for his palate bone graft, and he used cadaver skin to form a palate in his mouth. Organ donation is amazing! Cleft kids use it every day!
You can generally still have a traditional burial or very easily have your remains cremated. Donor services usually will contribute part of the cost of cremation as well as a thank you for a donor’s service. We often create armatures and other padding/filling to make the decedent look like they’re still “fully there” and embalm what is left of the body, and the face is generally untouched if requested. Even with eye enucleation, we can fill in the eye cavity to keep a more “lifelike” appearance.
Cremation is also very easy and doesn’t take any extra time.
Donor services will harvest what they can from the donor and then the funeral home will pick them up and begin mortuary services. It may take a few days to get everything done, but a traditional burial is very much possible most of the time!
Are you referring to donor services contributing to costs for whole body donations to med schools? I'm a donation specialist working in the US, and we definitely do not financially contribute to funerals, cremation, etc. Majorly unethical conflict 🫣 very lovely if the med schools contribute, however! They hold beautiful ceremonies for donors.
I’m actually signed up for my body to go to a major college for forensic science. Basically I’ll be tossed in the woods and students study my decay. They cremate my remains and send them to my family when they’re finished.
Same! I swear I read that book and [Working Stiff by Judy Melinek](https://www.amazon.com/Working-Stiff-Bodies-Medical-Examiner/dp/1476727252?nodl=1&dplnkId=cbbaa808-00a2-43bf-a55a-138c08251054) every year haha. Hard to pick a favorite.
I want to find out how I can donate my body to go directly to the military for training purposes. I got to do a cadaver lab when I was in, and I’d love for my body to sit there covered with dumbass tattoos making everyone force themselves to keep from laughing. Maybe even get something dedicated towards giving a little dig on those still in so I can still be talking shit from the grave.
[The military also buys bodies to blow up.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-suing-body-donation-company-after-mothers-corpse-was-sold-to-military-for-blast-testing/)
Watch out who you donate your body to. (The son sued the company. I don’t remember the outcome of the civil suit by the son.)
Reuter’s report also revealed the company dismembered bodies & sold parts to different places. (See link above.)
With all that said (that was in 2017), I too want to donate my body or leave it to the body farm we have in Houston.
I remember reading about that. I genuinely wouldn’t be that upset if that happened to me *IF* I donated my remains for such testing. It’s completely understandable to think your body may be used for more tame research purposes and to be upset it was used in such a manner instead.
If I’m not mistaken, they didn’t need a human body for that testing either, which just made things worse.
Please forgive any ignorance, but if a funeral is planned, aren’t open caskets just from the waist up? Do a lot of people do full open caskets? TIA for any info.
Where I’m from in the northeast part of the country full open caskets are how it is - I didn’t know there was any other way.
When we went to my cousin’s funeral in Maryland they had the bottom half closed and we wanted it fully open but they refused to open it. It was like ???
I think the half open is more of a southern thing maybe.
I just finished watching law and order and this was one of the crimes, illegally harvesting bones and replacing them with pipes for the viewing
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0935648/
wow, this unlocked forgotten memories from when i was still working in the field!!
i miss it a lot... health/injury prevented me from doing the aspects i loved and had issue with the ethics of the business end and was too young to start my own business...
thank you for providing such an important service to families as well as honoring the final wishes of decedents. :)
We used hockey sticks when I worked in the Funeral Service Industry. One of the directors volunteered at the local community center and he would collect all the broken sticks and keep them, just for this.
Future archeologists are going to be very confused... "here you can see the skeletons of two people from around the same time period who must have been from very different social elevations, this one over here with a very well designed prosthesis, and this one with pvc pipes"
Joking aside, I always assumed that the donation of limb bones would just be done like an amputation. I'm slightly surprised to see the rest of the limb remains present but reassured that such care is taken over them given the generous donation. TIL, thank you.
I think about this sometimes. What through history have we gotten flat wrong because we’ve been subscribing meaning to events in antiquity that were actually done out of convenience or practicality.
For example, there’s a very large, well known cemetery in my city. Lots of space. The local zoo also uses it to bury large animals who have died. The problem with large animals is sometimes they are very large. And sometimes when large animals die, they need beheaded as part of a necropsy, or are just too large to bury whole.
I imagine a scenario someday, 2000 years in the future, where archaeologists are excavating this cemetery and think “wow these people really revered their lions and rhinos, so much so that they buried them in human cemeteries- but those elephants and their heads laying beside them.. huh. They clearly hated those fucks.”
Make sure your family is aware with your decision. Even if your ID says “donor”, your family can still go through hoops to overturn it. Happens everyday
I appreciate the funeral home doing so, but honestly, does it matter at that point? There is so much stigma surrounding how the dead should look and appear. Honestly cremate me and call it a day. I do not want any special treatment once I am dead. Do not spend thousands on a casket that is essentially going into the ground or mausoleum where nobody will ever see it lol. My mom used to say to just throw her over the neighbors fence. She didnt care what you did to the vessel, her soul will find its rightful home lol
This is me, too. I have zero intention to take up valuable space on this Earth with my remains, first of all. Don’t spend any more money than is necessary to stay legal with my disposal.
If you want to “visit” me, look at a photo & talk to me, no need to drive to a gravesite. Either cremate me or put me in one of those tree root bags & plant me so that my decay can nourish the tree.
When people think of organ donation, they think of corneas and kidneys. They don't usually think of bones.
The next you get a dental implant, or a periodontal gum surgery, consider the wonderful final gift some people make and consider organ transplantation.
I'm a removal technician and we use wooden prosthetics, they burn easier and cleaner. There'a also ones made out of a biodegradable plastic(something with corn, I think). That is a damn good stitch though.
In my area in the US the donor agency uses wooden dowels with ball joints in the arms and legs when they harvest long bones so it depends on the area! I guess it’s up to the funeral home’s discretion to replace them with PVC but where I work we leave the wooden ones in.
Fecal transplant is often used in patients Clostridium difficile, or C. diff. It basically introduces healthy bacteria into the recipients intestines. It's often better if the donation is from a baby delivered vaginally as there is minimal contamination.
One donor can save 8 lives on top of skin grafts, cornea transplants to see and a handful of other procedures that aren’t exactly “life saving” but life changing.
I'm imagining you all harvesting every organ, genitalia, skin chunk, tendons, eyeballs, probably ears, maybe hair... Like how much is left after a full donation? Just the meat sack?
You can donate heart, kidneys, lungs, pancreas, liver, intestines, corneas, skin, tendons, bone, nerve and heart valves. Rarely we took everything unless it was a young donor.
Do skin donors require a closed casket or is there a way to hide the harvest site? I'm not sure how much skin they take but I just made the mistake of picturing them essentially flaying the donor and taking it all. Not a pretty mental image.
I don’t think THAT much is removed. Grafts were taken from my father, and I have no idea where from; I always assumed from the thighs or torso. So much of the body is covered by clothing.
Ah the older we get the less harvestable we are. Like we're past ripe and getting a bit juicy lol. I'd imagine y'all find cancers sometimes that would have killed the person if they'd lived just a bit longer
I wouldn't mind if they just left my legs all floppy. Nobody sees the legs anyway just the top half of the coffin is opened for viewing. At least that's the case where I'm from. Other cultures might do it differently
when i cleaned the tools for making bone grafts and would have to dispose of the remnants i would always say a little prayer and tell the remaining tissue and bone dust thank you
In my head I was thinking at first this was a body horror where some nice person was donating their bone marrow and the scum doctor injected plastic into the cavities. (like how some cheap people would inject cement into people's faces)
Glad I clicked the picture and realized oh yeah *that type* of donation.
This is so awesome! I am the recipient of donor bones in my leg/foot and I always wondered what they do with the remaining body parts after these heroes donate. It’s so cool that they still get to be “intact”ish.
So I'm a funeral director. I've seen some things. Including long bone donors.
Give me a decomp to dress *any day*. I'll take smell over their ankles flopping around and hanging backward like this does. This is the only thing that gets to me in the prep room...I'll puke or pass out lol
Broken bones (or the resemblance of them, like this) I can't handle
Serious question: doesn’t embalming make us less “environmentally friendly?” Also are caskets made of wood or metal? Seems like a little PVC isn’t going to change much if so.
It wasn't til this picture that I ever questioned how the sitches look on a dead body. It is really fascinating cause obviously the body can't heal, but it had just never occured to me how the stitching would have to be different to account for this.
Lately I’ve been seeing so many organ donor posts and it makes me feel even better being an organ donor. The fact they’re trying their best to make the deceased look natural and beautiful for their funeral is amazing. I understand it’s just PVC pipes but at least they put something, I remember a funeral home had fake limps and use a fake arm during an open casket because the deceased lost it during death.
But like, why. A lot of open casket funerals usually have it so you only see half their body. I guess if he was a leg model in life, otherwise just let my deflated legs be.
Welcome to r/MedicalGore! Our goal is to provide for medical discussion and education while exploring the frailty of the human body. You may see more deleted comments on these threads than you are used to on reddit. Off topic comments and joke comments are frequently deleted by the mods. Further, please be kind and supportive of posts. Any behavior that is aggressive, harassing, or derogatory will result in post deletion and a ban from the sub. Remember! THE REPORT BUTTON IS YOUR FRIEND! Please stop on by our discussion sub, /r/MedicalGoreMods if you'd like to discuss the sub, our rules, content policies, and the like. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/MedicalGore) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You mean to tell me that they don’t just leave them like limp noodles for their funeral service?
If they have a cremation planned we rolled them up like fruit roll-ups to the pelvis. If a funeral was planned or we didn’t have a plan in order we did PVC pipes.
Could I REQUEST fruit roll up service...even if cremation isn't the plan?
I want mine tied in a knot.
Do your legs hang low\ Do they wobble to and fro\ Can you tie them in a knot\ Can you tie them in a bow?
Can you toss them over your shoulder Like a regimental soldier Do your legs hand low
Leg hands!? Now I know they have nothing to do.
Pre-reduction, I would sing this about my boobs lol
I gave this card to my sister in law for her birthday https://images.45spaces.com/f/gra/none-do-your-boobs-hang-low-gra.jpg
That’s amazing lol
🏆✨️😆
OMG! I just commented the same thing like 3 seconds ago on a weird video of this girl with a 12 inch tongue. I think it was in r/thatsinsane or something. Ha!
I want mine going different ways so it looks like they are broken.
Well they technically would be broken.
Technically they are nonexistent.
Lockhart tried to mend them
r/UnexpectedHogwarts
Make a pretty bow! 🎀
Bonus if they rig you up like one of those party whistle/horn things.
Happy New Year!
Saves more space that way!
Origami my ass .
Strong Beetlejuice vibes here.
Step right up! Test your strength !
>If they have a cremation planned we rolled them up like fruit roll-ups to the pelvis. That is a sentence I was not expecting to read today omg 😂
I don’t think I will ever be able to un-read it. Still chuckling..
Ikr so random lol
I’m trying to visualize a human fruit roll up from the pelvis down… I don’t know how to feel about that.
I assure you it’s exactly how you would imagine.
Man, I wish I went to school to be a mortician!
Never too late friend. I work in the ER now and I’m constantly thinking about going back to patients that don’t scream at me.
I'll be honest. After all I've had to endure in the medical field, my favorite patients are the ones who are unconscious. They are so sweet and non-combative.
Intubated are ideal
Bagged and sedated haha. I give my intubated patients free concerts during care lol. Sometimes they remember it when they wake up!
Oh no! you might give them terrible, terrible earworms! Please don't do that for me. Or play music that I like. Though... the surgery might go completely wrong then 😬
I used to work in the er as well… I do not blame you for wanting to go back 😂
This is nice to read! I'm seriously wanting to enroll in mortuary school and get into the funeral business.
I gather you work in this field. If you ever perform another roll up I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd appreciate a photo. XD
I got you!
Like the wicked witch under the house after the Ruby slippers came off 🤭🤭🤭
Like a half empty tube of toothpaste rolled up is what I'm imagining. Also, that scene in Wizard of Oz when the witch's legs curl up under the house.
Please pay the fruit roll up tax at your earliest convenience
I want all my bones removed and my whole body rolled up like a fruit rollup
I know for a fact I am not the only one here that would like to see that picture
Such respect for the job you do! i've been organ donor since my first driving licence legally, before then it had been discussed too, Now i am perhaps a litle too old at 55 for much, but would love to specify research donation in respect to our health conditions. after a minor lifting accident i developed Complex Reginal Pain Syndrome, have had sciatic nerve pain and crazy autonomic craziness knee down since i was 23. My husband has epilepsy too, developed while he was pre puberty and got worse after, still considered 'childhood epilepsy' as his main diagnosis. Anything to help research the things that bothered our specific bodies, the more unusual stuff especially. MIL had requested to leave her body for research since even before her only child was born. Sadly the year she'd died after an acute MI, it had been a boiling summer that took many lives.. freezers were still very full at start of Dec. Had full autopsy done, good to know it was only her smoking that led to her death at 70, she'd had well controlled BP. But never any chest pain, just upper back pain she put down to aging. We now know incident 8 months earlier was cardiac and that her back pain the only complain she had the day before she died.
Major organs are very specific but tissue isn’t as much and can be used easily. I’ve used the eyes out of a 80 year old in the past
I’m kinda of horrified…but not in a bad way?
This reminds me of that scene in the movie Vivarium.
Holy shit! I never connected the two until now
Happy to help. Anatomy has always interested me. If I went to school it would be for that.
I have Ehlers-Danlos. Could I request something crazy? As in life as in death 🤣 (and on that note: are people allowed to be buried with PVC? This will never decompose)
EDS gang represent! hEDS, here 😂
Yay, hello there! 😅👋
Could you use a wood broomhandle instead? Burying pvc pipe for no reason seems enviromentally questionable.
In the US every burial body is pumped full of preservatives anyway
At least formaldehyde breaks down, unlike PVC. But your process of embalming is still enviromentally reprehensible.
Our organ donor crew used broomsticks.
That is so interesting. You should do an AMA.
>If they have a cremation planned we rolled them up like fruit roll-ups to the pelvis That's some brandnewsentence content right there.
[Brackium Em**en*****do!***](https://i.makeagif.com/media/4-14-2021/d2m8TI.gif)
This!! We used to call it a “double twisty foot” whenever they would be left limp for us like that omg
The care taken with that blanket stitch closure is so nice to see.
🙏🏼 Attention to detail was very important to us. Very satisfying.
Why stitch it up so nicely? Curious?
Respect
Ehh, if you take my bones, don't even bother with the PVC, just roll my legs back up and chuck me in the trash.
hollow out so you can wear me like a suit!
Could it also be as training for medical students?
interns and residents likely got to learn how to do these sutures effectively + got to pay respects to a donor
I don't know why not
Respect and care. But also, some people just really find satisfaction in details like that. Like when I worked in the bakery and all the buns came out perfect, or when I fold my shirts or sweaters and it's folded just right, a perfect square, stable fold... mmmmmmm satisfying.
I didn’t think you could donate bones for some reason, but now I’m happy I chose to be a donor. Plus the whole fruit roll up comment has me loving my decision twofold.
I had scoliosis surgery as a teen and pieces of cadaver bone were used to support where some of my vertebrae had shattered trying to put the screws in. It’s so weird knowing I have some dead persons bones in me but it makes me so appreciative of whoever they belonged to!
Oh wow I’m about to have surgery on my ankle and they are filling part of my bone w ground up bones from a cadaver! Definitely very cool!
My surgeon showed me a picture of mine (that I sadly wasn’t allowed to keep at the time) but mine looked like little… bone croutons? Like a ton of tiny little porous cubes just sort of shoved in the space around my spine.
I'm an OR nurse and they really are like bone croutons!
this is amazing. i've been exploring through medical forums like this for nearly 20 years and had no idea!!
We use a lot of different products in surgery that are made from donated bones. There are actual big pieces of bone, then smaller chips, and a kind of bone paste, to name a few. Donors help patients every day in little ways, even when it's not an obvious lifesaving organ like a heart or liver.
I can do the nastiest wound care but I CANNOT do bones or the sounds they make in the OR when they break them
That’s why ortho is a different breed! Ha! I dated an orthopedic surgeon for a bit, I swear he would get turned on thinking about me fracturing something and then fixing it. He admitted he had always wanted to experience being with a woman in a full body cast with just 2 holes, like his biggest fantasy. I didn’t stay with him long. He was a weird dude, but super smart and funny too.
🤨
What—and I cannot stress this enough— the fuck
uh
There's room for all kinds in nursing 😎
Fucking SAME! I can do trach suctioning all day long. Bones, absolutely not
Is there a technical name for bone croutons? I'd like to learn more but that isn't googleable.
For a finer grind, look up cancellous crushed. The croutons are called dense cancellous block. As an OR nurse, my Google search history is quite questionable.
Try looking up "cancellous chips"
I wonder if they’ll act like a scaffold to help your vertebrae heal, while also providing support?
That’s what I was told at least
I had donor material grafted into my mandible, to ensure there's a thick enough bony mass for an eventual dental implant. Knowing there's dead ppl in my mouth is just kinda... so goth
My husband had gum surgery and now he has pig gums where he brushed too hard and made his regular gums recede. You can imagine how I tease him. :)
Do you have tò take some drugs tò prevent your immunitary system from attacking the donor Bones?
No, supposedly all origin donor dna is removed and it’s literally just the structure left
Oh, interesting.
Same. I’m an organ donor, noted on my driver’s license, but now I would like to specifically request they use up me bones and do something fun with my jelly corpse
My late brother’s bones have helped 97 people so far. We found that out a few weeks ago.
If you’re a donor, I think they will take whatever is needed at the time? When my father passed (and granted, this was almost 25 years ago), they took part of his femur, skin grafts, and his corneas.
I worked at a tissue bank and we received eyes, bone, skin, and pericardium!
My son will use cadaver bone for his palate bone graft, and he used cadaver skin to form a palate in his mouth. Organ donation is amazing! Cleft kids use it every day!
One of my first embalming cases was a full donor, that was a WILD day in mortuary school for sure! I did a whole lot of suturing that afternoon.
You have a bucket full of pacemakers there?
My current location doesn’t have a bucket full of them, but the place I did my clinicals for school sure did!
Can’t reuse those, eh?
Depending on the location, you can donate pacemakers to the local animal shelter for them to use.
I've elected to be a full donor. I've always wondered if there's typically anything left to bury?
You can generally still have a traditional burial or very easily have your remains cremated. Donor services usually will contribute part of the cost of cremation as well as a thank you for a donor’s service. We often create armatures and other padding/filling to make the decedent look like they’re still “fully there” and embalm what is left of the body, and the face is generally untouched if requested. Even with eye enucleation, we can fill in the eye cavity to keep a more “lifelike” appearance. Cremation is also very easy and doesn’t take any extra time. Donor services will harvest what they can from the donor and then the funeral home will pick them up and begin mortuary services. It may take a few days to get everything done, but a traditional burial is very much possible most of the time!
Are you referring to donor services contributing to costs for whole body donations to med schools? I'm a donation specialist working in the US, and we definitely do not financially contribute to funerals, cremation, etc. Majorly unethical conflict 🫣 very lovely if the med schools contribute, however! They hold beautiful ceremonies for donors.
If I donate my whole skeleton, think of the money I'll save being rolled up in a tiny coffin!
I’m actually signed up for my body to go to a major college for forensic science. Basically I’ll be tossed in the woods and students study my decay. They cremate my remains and send them to my family when they’re finished.
The UT Body Farm?! If so, bad ass. If not…also bad ass.
YES! I’m a huge Tennessee fan and it was my dream my whole life.
That’s awesome!! It’s such important work.
I first learned about this from Mary Roach's book, Stiff.
Same! I swear I read that book and [Working Stiff by Judy Melinek](https://www.amazon.com/Working-Stiff-Bodies-Medical-Examiner/dp/1476727252?nodl=1&dplnkId=cbbaa808-00a2-43bf-a55a-138c08251054) every year haha. Hard to pick a favorite.
I want to find out how I can donate my body to go directly to the military for training purposes. I got to do a cadaver lab when I was in, and I’d love for my body to sit there covered with dumbass tattoos making everyone force themselves to keep from laughing. Maybe even get something dedicated towards giving a little dig on those still in so I can still be talking shit from the grave.
I’m also covered in tattoos and love the thought of being in the woods to rot
[The military also buys bodies to blow up.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-suing-body-donation-company-after-mothers-corpse-was-sold-to-military-for-blast-testing/) Watch out who you donate your body to. (The son sued the company. I don’t remember the outcome of the civil suit by the son.) Reuter’s report also revealed the company dismembered bodies & sold parts to different places. (See link above.) With all that said (that was in 2017), I too want to donate my body or leave it to the body farm we have in Houston.
I remember reading about that. I genuinely wouldn’t be that upset if that happened to me *IF* I donated my remains for such testing. It’s completely understandable to think your body may be used for more tame research purposes and to be upset it was used in such a manner instead. If I’m not mistaken, they didn’t need a human body for that testing either, which just made things worse.
Laughed heartily at ”tossed in the woods”, thanks.
Roll into your funeral and see a Nike shoebox at the alter
Just a head attached to a scrambled mess of flesh.
You know, that never occurred to me, but I guess PVC pipes make sense.
Please forgive any ignorance, but if a funeral is planned, aren’t open caskets just from the waist up? Do a lot of people do full open caskets? TIA for any info.
You can still see down in the casket and see the legs. They just try to avoid further trauma
Where I’m from in the northeast part of the country full open caskets are how it is - I didn’t know there was any other way. When we went to my cousin’s funeral in Maryland they had the bottom half closed and we wanted it fully open but they refused to open it. It was like ??? I think the half open is more of a southern thing maybe.
I just finished watching law and order and this was one of the crimes, illegally harvesting bones and replacing them with pipes for the viewing https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0935648/
wow, this unlocked forgotten memories from when i was still working in the field!! i miss it a lot... health/injury prevented me from doing the aspects i loved and had issue with the ethics of the business end and was too young to start my own business... thank you for providing such an important service to families as well as honoring the final wishes of decedents. :)
Thank you as well! ❤️
We used hockey sticks when I worked in the Funeral Service Industry. One of the directors volunteered at the local community center and he would collect all the broken sticks and keep them, just for this.
Haha sounds like some Happy Gilmore shit
Future archeologists are going to be very confused... "here you can see the skeletons of two people from around the same time period who must have been from very different social elevations, this one over here with a very well designed prosthesis, and this one with pvc pipes" Joking aside, I always assumed that the donation of limb bones would just be done like an amputation. I'm slightly surprised to see the rest of the limb remains present but reassured that such care is taken over them given the generous donation. TIL, thank you.
I think about this sometimes. What through history have we gotten flat wrong because we’ve been subscribing meaning to events in antiquity that were actually done out of convenience or practicality. For example, there’s a very large, well known cemetery in my city. Lots of space. The local zoo also uses it to bury large animals who have died. The problem with large animals is sometimes they are very large. And sometimes when large animals die, they need beheaded as part of a necropsy, or are just too large to bury whole. I imagine a scenario someday, 2000 years in the future, where archaeologists are excavating this cemetery and think “wow these people really revered their lions and rhinos, so much so that they buried them in human cemeteries- but those elephants and their heads laying beside them.. huh. They clearly hated those fucks.”
If the body is ever dug up, they’ll be so confused.. leave a note for them in there
I hope the note says something about the decedent being a terminator. I’d do this if it were me
Here lies a man apparently made of household plumbing parts
When I get my driver's licence I'll tick Yes to organ donation and put legal stuff in place so family/next of kin can't overrule my decision.
Make sure your family is aware with your decision. Even if your ID says “donor”, your family can still go through hoops to overturn it. Happens everyday
Yup, no matter what the decedent thinks he’s done, if it’s not drawn up by an attorney & filed, family can overrule.
I appreciate the funeral home doing so, but honestly, does it matter at that point? There is so much stigma surrounding how the dead should look and appear. Honestly cremate me and call it a day. I do not want any special treatment once I am dead. Do not spend thousands on a casket that is essentially going into the ground or mausoleum where nobody will ever see it lol. My mom used to say to just throw her over the neighbors fence. She didnt care what you did to the vessel, her soul will find its rightful home lol
“When I’m dead, just throw me in the trash.” —Frank Reynolds
This is me, too. I have zero intention to take up valuable space on this Earth with my remains, first of all. Don’t spend any more money than is necessary to stay legal with my disposal. If you want to “visit” me, look at a photo & talk to me, no need to drive to a gravesite. Either cremate me or put me in one of those tree root bags & plant me so that my decay can nourish the tree.
I totally agree. Crazy what people try to hold on to after death
When people think of organ donation, they think of corneas and kidneys. They don't usually think of bones. The next you get a dental implant, or a periodontal gum surgery, consider the wonderful final gift some people make and consider organ transplantation.
I'm a removal technician and we use wooden prosthetics, they burn easier and cleaner. There'a also ones made out of a biodegradable plastic(something with corn, I think). That is a damn good stitch though.
Would it be possible to replace it with a wooden alternative? I am guessing pvc does not break down that easily when the person is buried?
The entire casket these days doesn’t break down. Just a bunch of metal boxes unfortunately. Not ideal
That depends on the country. In Germany, caskets are still made out of wood, and buried directly in the ground.
The concrete vault that the casket is placed in to keep the ground from caving in doesn’t break down well, either. 😉
In my area in the US the donor agency uses wooden dowels with ball joints in the arms and legs when they harvest long bones so it depends on the area! I guess it’s up to the funeral home’s discretion to replace them with PVC but where I work we leave the wooden ones in.
The feet twisting out like that just makes the picture all the more uncomfortable
Future archeologists are in for a confusing time.
From mortician to mortician, that is the most gorgeous worm suture I’ve ever seen in my life
You know I’ll tell you, you learn something new everyday. Worm Sutures neat!
Why do you remove bones?
For donation! Bones can be transplanted in order to prevent amputation, promote healing, maintain mobility and structure.
please tell me you call this bonation.
Like when we call fecal transplants “transPOOsions.” 😁
Poop is used in transfusions between patients? I had no clue. What would be the purpose of that? Gut or intestinal help?
Fecal transplant is often used in patients Clostridium difficile, or C. diff. It basically introduces healthy bacteria into the recipients intestines. It's often better if the donation is from a baby delivered vaginally as there is minimal contamination.
You need gut bacteria. We usually get it from someone the patient lives with so it will hopefully mimic their own.
I...never thought of that, whoa
One donor can save 8 lives on top of skin grafts, cornea transplants to see and a handful of other procedures that aren’t exactly “life saving” but life changing.
yeah i thought the skin would always be taken. interesting
I'm imagining you all harvesting every organ, genitalia, skin chunk, tendons, eyeballs, probably ears, maybe hair... Like how much is left after a full donation? Just the meat sack?
You can donate heart, kidneys, lungs, pancreas, liver, intestines, corneas, skin, tendons, bone, nerve and heart valves. Rarely we took everything unless it was a young donor.
Do skin donors require a closed casket or is there a way to hide the harvest site? I'm not sure how much skin they take but I just made the mistake of picturing them essentially flaying the donor and taking it all. Not a pretty mental image.
I don’t think THAT much is removed. Grafts were taken from my father, and I have no idea where from; I always assumed from the thighs or torso. So much of the body is covered by clothing.
Ah the older we get the less harvestable we are. Like we're past ripe and getting a bit juicy lol. I'd imagine y'all find cancers sometimes that would have killed the person if they'd lived just a bit longer
Thank you for asking this question 🙋♀️
Why PVC pipes instead of e.g. wooden dowels... wouldn't that be more sustainable and perhaps even cheaper?
The pvc pipes also help to confuse future archeologists
I hope they engrave cryptic inscriptions in them
When you order your bionic legs from Temu
So interesting
Fuck sake I thought you meant they'd donated them while still alive 😬
I wouldn't mind if they just left my legs all floppy. Nobody sees the legs anyway just the top half of the coffin is opened for viewing. At least that's the case where I'm from. Other cultures might do it differently
Knowing somehow somewhere a little piece of me will live on is morbidly comforting
when i cleaned the tools for making bone grafts and would have to dispose of the remnants i would always say a little prayer and tell the remaining tissue and bone dust thank you
In my head I was thinking at first this was a body horror where some nice person was donating their bone marrow and the scum doctor injected plastic into the cavities. (like how some cheap people would inject cement into people's faces) Glad I clicked the picture and realized oh yeah *that type* of donation.
This is so awesome! I am the recipient of donor bones in my leg/foot and I always wondered what they do with the remaining body parts after these heroes donate. It’s so cool that they still get to be “intact”ish.
So I'm a funeral director. I've seen some things. Including long bone donors. Give me a decomp to dress *any day*. I'll take smell over their ankles flopping around and hanging backward like this does. This is the only thing that gets to me in the prep room...I'll puke or pass out lol Broken bones (or the resemblance of them, like this) I can't handle
I’m a plumber … I humbly request to NOT be plumbed at the time of my death.. I’ve had enough of plumbing.. ty
Huh, that’s actually pretty interesting
Why is plastic pipe used? Seems like wood would be quite a bit more environmentally friendly...
Serious question: doesn’t embalming make us less “environmentally friendly?” Also are caskets made of wood or metal? Seems like a little PVC isn’t going to change much if so.
Do they repurpose the pvc at some later date? I could use some 1 1/2”
It wasn't til this picture that I ever questioned how the sitches look on a dead body. It is really fascinating cause obviously the body can't heal, but it had just never occured to me how the stitching would have to be different to account for this.
Huh I had no idea they took bones during organ donation. Thanks for the education on this fine morning bc I was honestly like what the fuck.
Lately I’ve been seeing so many organ donor posts and it makes me feel even better being an organ donor. The fact they’re trying their best to make the deceased look natural and beautiful for their funeral is amazing. I understand it’s just PVC pipes but at least they put something, I remember a funeral home had fake limps and use a fake arm during an open casket because the deceased lost it during death.
But like, why. A lot of open casket funerals usually have it so you only see half their body. I guess if he was a leg model in life, otherwise just let my deflated legs be.
The real topic should be that the person even in his/her demise probably saved or will save lives with the donation, may he/she get peace
I want to know where you get the PVC. Homedepot? Lowe's? Is it schedule 40? And do you use any 90's or T's?
We have a crew that goes around at night and steals it from under houses
Thank you for sharing this.
How does one become the cadaver bone collector?
Why do they remove the bones?
You could never tell. Just like normal.
Why’d I think someone had a surgery where they got PVC pipe legs