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50 Times Autopsy Doctors Uncovered Disturbing Truths About A Person’s Death
Antifreeze, grapefruit, popcorn. Sounds like a weird grocery list, right? Well, not if you’re a pathologist.
These are just a few of the strange things medical professionals have discovered inside bodies during autopsies, as revealed in a viral Reddit thread.
Below, we’ve rounded up the most fascinating—and unsettling—cases they shared. Scroll down to read them, but just a heads-up: some are genuinely disturbing.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Not mine but a Doctor i used to work with. Back when he was in school, he would do his cadaver labs really late at night.(to many people during the day.) One time it was really late. Around 2am. He was listening to his lecture on his head phones and he saw the cadavers arm move/twitch. He thought it was just his mind playing tricks on him. Then he saw it again. Proceeded to run away in a panic.
He told a few of his classmates what happened but nobody believed him. Next day they had a group cadaver lab with the same cadaver. The arm twitched yet again. The professor did some digging and it turns out the patients pacemaker was still fully functional and occasionally fired, causing the arm twitch.
He was so relieved. He thought there was a zombie in there.
Bi.Felicia 7 months ago
Oh my goodness, that poor guy. I can only imagine how relieved he was to find out about the pacemaker.
CatD 7 months ago
I'm not sure about this one, they would have removed the pacemaker during the PM.
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DaisyBee 7 months ago
That’s what you get for being in a morgue at 2AM!! No way in hell would I do it lol - it would be daylight, lights on, crowd of people around, priest in the corner with holy water just in case, etc 🤣
Stannous Flouride 7 months ago
If you cut off the head of a zombie that has a pacemaker, what happens then?
Zitronella 7 months ago
I can't believe. The Pacemaker stimulate only the heart not the nerves from the arm...?!
MrLiesegang 7 months ago
Autopsy... Digging... Pacemaker found.... Not the term I would use but yeah.
RELATED:
#2
My friend had to do an autopsy on a baby. The dad claimed she died after rolling off a couch. My friend found that the kid was slammed against a hard surface multiple times. Dad eventually admitted he hit the baby against the wall after she wouldn’t stop crying.
My friend had to quit that job cause it was so taxing mentally.
Ejteh 7 months ago (edited)
Ofcourse this guy is in the wrong, but with that being said: don't underestimate the horrors of post partum depression in both men and woman. And don't underestimate the impact of a crying baby. I've watched my friend go mad from both. They are all okay now, but she could not be in the house with baby, because she was scared she would hurt the baby. I've held her for hours, crying her eyes out because she regretted having a baby and wondering if she could ever love the child (she loves her child very much now). It took years for her to be able to be alone with the child at night, because she was scared she'd lose control again and wouldnt be able to look after her child. Years. Baby was not even a baby anymore. If you ever feel like you want to hurt your baby just to stop the crying, put baby in a safe spot, leave, and call someone or even 911. I cant stress this enough. Get help. You are not the only one, and you are not alone ❤️
Nitka Tsar 7 months ago
Thank you for pointing this out! I agree wholeheartedly! A baby can be SO taxing on a parents mind and body. Imagine being woken every night for a month or more! Maybe even more than once every night by a screaming baby. It‘s like t*****e.
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Original Kinkster 7 months ago
A professor in a psychology class once said, ever parent who claims they didn't think about to slap or shake their baby to stop it from crying even once is lying. And as a parent, I think he was right. It's hard to remain calm and responsible a lot of times and sometimes something just snaps with the worst outcome you could ever think about.
Only Me 7 months ago
But most people don't act on their frustrations, they recognise it for what it is. Parenting is fu cking hard and most people try their best.
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CatD 7 months ago
With Republicans running some state governments women aren't being given the choice. And that's if they survive the pregnancy.
Load More Replies... Lena Flising 7 months ago
Before you have a baby, spend some time with an actual baby and check if you like it. Some babies scream for months, I screamed more or less constantly during my first three months. Luckily I have parents that actually love children, and they did have three more after me (none of them screamed that much). We are all loved 100 percent.
Luna Zen 7 months ago
i dislike children and have limited coping skills and patience. i could absolutely beat a crying baby WHICH IS WHY I DONT HAVE KIDS. perhaps it’s time to stop encouraging everyone to reproduce and stop shaming those who choose not to breed because they don’t actually want and cannot deal with children. i’m not excusing abuse. i’m trying to prevent it.
Bleau 7 months ago
Birth control is a wonderful thing yet most are just ignorant and selfish.
Load More Replies... Theora Fifty-five Johnson 7 months ago
"after she wouldn’t stop crying. " No excuse, but infant colic is not treated as a serious health issue. I've read this story before, and it';s heartbreaking every time.
Nadine Debard 7 months ago (edited)
My son had it and God, when it's 4 am and you didn't sleep at all and can't put your baby in his crib or he screams like hell... You need it to stop. It's really hard to stay calm. Fortunately we were both very implied and we took turns.
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#3
Assisted with a post-mortem when I was a student. Female patient died in her 40s. Her medical history had extensive complaints of abdominal pains, one Dr even referred to her as a "hypochondriac" and others commented on apparent anxiety. Opened her abdomen and she had extensive scar tissue, she was absolutely massacred inside from endometriosis. She suffered for decades and never got referred for a laparoscopy.
She didn't have f*****g anxiety, she had a medical condition.
EDIT: a few clarifications. Patient cause of death was unrelated. I won't give any details because it may get too identifying. I am UK based and this was an NHS post mortem. Patient did not have diagnosed anxiety. Drs referred to her anxiety only in relation to her abdominal pain complaints, no other known history.
Thank you for sharing your stories with me and others. I will take the time to read every one.
DaisyBee 7 months ago
Poor woman. Also have endometriosis and was told for 14 years my symptoms were “just normal period symptoms”. Nope, stage 3 diagnosis - and a diagnosis of PCOS too. Had to go private to be taken seriously
amy lee 7 months ago
Funny how money helps us speak louder. Glad you finally got heard ... Even if you had to pay to do it
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SnackbarKaat 7 months ago
Unfortunately us women get to hear often at the doctor's that we suffer from stress, anxiety or fatigue and we just need a good rest or see a psychologist. I have chronic fatigue syndrome and had to search for 13 years to find some sort of acknowledgement. I think women often don't get taken seriously
T'Mar of Vulcan 7 months ago
The same thing happened to my mother. She was always in pain, and doctors could not figure out what it was. (I personally thought it was related to her having broken her back as a toddler, but the two vertebrae were fused and she didn't have back problems.) Her doctor told her she was a hypochondriac. She wrote to the South African medical council about him, but nothing was done. More than 25 years later, an English doctor (i.e. a doctor from England) discovered that Mom had multiple food sensitivities. Knowledge of this wasn't really a thing in the '70s, so no one thought to check. At least the last 15 or so years of her life were lived without pain.
boredkitten 7 months ago (edited)
How did I thought this was NHS. I had also something real in my body which had to be operated but I only discovered over 3 years later when I paid privately as NHS GP was like anxiety and etc
JB 7 months ago (edited)
I think it’s getting a little better but we really need to work on getting the information out to women in general, as well as family doctors, about endometriosis and PCOS, and the symptoms. Having something specific to suggest as a possible cause can open the conversation wider than only being able to describe “agonizing pain around my period”. I HATE to suggest this but maybe take a trusted man along to the appointment(s) whose role is to sit there and say nothing. My endo journey began in 2009, when the temp GP (F) at my DRs tried to brush off fainting and sometimes vomiting from pain as, “All periods hurt.” I flat told her I knew my own body a heII of a lot better than her, refer me for investigation or I’m getting a 2nd opinion, which WILL confirm a medical issue. Then I’m making a formal complaint to the practice mgr about your attitude and failure to do your job. She referred me for ultrasound. Without going into the other details, still took 2 years to be referred to a gyn. Endo was confirmed during surgery to remove an ovary at risk of torsion. Please be aware: normal periods may be uncomfortable; agonizing pain where it feels like ice picks stabbing into your abdomen or your insides ripping apart is NOT NORMAL!
KatSaidWhat 7 months ago
People seem to think that South Africa would be third world when it comes to health but in 1994 I was diagnosed almost immediately with endometriosis - my presenting symptoms were ridiculous period pains even though I had only had my periods for 2 years (I was super sporty and managed to put them off until 17). I got very lucky when I hear these horror stories of women being ignored or brushed off as period pains, and it is always by men who will never have endometriosis.
Senjo Krane 7 months ago
South Africa is actually tops when it comes to medical. I work for a gynae here and we have patients who come to us while they're on holiday from 1st world countries overseas.
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K_Tx 7 months ago
I am so grateful my doctor believed me! Probably helped that the same doctor had performed a hysterectomy on my older sister when she was 22 due to endometriosis. Luckily she had her kids early in life and I was able to have mine before the need to remove all the offending parts.
Oops 7 months ago
Had this too, was ever told a natural process cant be painfull, declared me as a hypochoncdriac and drama queen. Sometimes i nearly passed out of pain. Some people are just idiots and ignorant, to make their own lives easier and leave another person in pure despair for their own benefit. O yes, parents and husband, thank you.
Corrina Byers 5 months ago
try having absolutely horrendously bad periods for 12 years and6 different gynecologists telling me thats just normal periods,, two of them were female,,,,well 12years of abject misery,,,got excruciating pain ended up at the er,,, several tests and a cat scan reveals one huge tumor a monster sized ovarian cyst and a grossly swollen infected fallopian tube and a fat grapefruit sized abscess on the middle of my liver,,, needed immediate surgery,,, but one idiot doc made a mistake on the consent form ..then claimed it couldnt be changed,, made me wait 5 months for that surgery,,,refused to give me any pain medication,, both ovaries, and,fallopian tube removed,,,that cyst was over 4 feet long and weighed 45 pounds,,,,that basketball sized ovarian cancer tumor was the size of an over inflated basketball,,,and very rare,,, that whole tumor was made into slides and made into a book,,,
#4
My mom loves this story:
My aunt got accepted into nursing school, but had to get prerequisites done in the summer. She knew someone who pulled some strings, and she was put into a pre-med class that taught pretty much the same thing as one of her nursing classes. She was the only woman, and because she has always looked younger than she is (and she was only 20 to begin with), and she’s really pretty, all the pre-med students groaned and complained that she would keep hold the class back.
Anyway, time came for the cadaver lab. The decedent had been in a car accident. The lab director and professor kept telling them that they weren’t looking for a cause of death—it had already been determined—they were just looking at the anatomy.
My aunt was looking over the x-rays and asked, “what were the circumstances of the accident” (my grandpa was a fire fighter/paramedic, so she knew that was a huge thing). The professor is like “We’re not looking for the cause of death. We told you, it was trauma from a car accident.” My aunt responds, “There’s a small spot on his kidney right here on the x-ray”.
They went and checked the kidney, and sure enough, there was a tiny tumor in his kidney. Based on the size and placement, it was determined that the tumor would have caused excruciating pain similar to a kidney stone—based on that information and the nature of the car accident, they said the man either blacked out from the pain while driving, or had a sharp, sudden pain that caused him to lose control of the vehicle.
They had to change the death certificate to add that to the contributory causes.
And my aunt also set the curve for the class.
And, two years later, she passed the boards with the top score. While in labor. My cousin was literally born 3-4 hours after my aunt pretty much aced the boards.
***My mom just informed me she merely passed the boards. My mistake.
I’m glad the pre-med students didn’t hold her back.
Bi.Felicia 7 months ago
Imho, the aunt did ace the boards exam, considering she was apparently in active labor while taking it and was still able to pass. She's lucky she was able to make it to the hospital in time for baby to arrive. Most board exams or similar licensure exams are held at specific testing centers, that are proctored,timed and secured. I'm surprised that she was able to hide the fact that she was in active labor, especially if her water broke.
Crystalwitch60 7 months ago
It’s called being a woman ! lol loads of women can do amazing things while in labour n an exam would have helped her a lot as she wasn’t focused on the pain so much !
Load More Replies... Tabitha 7 months ago (edited)
She should’ve stuck to pre-med classes. She’s a natural-born radiologist. Any idea just how difficult it is to not only see shadows and spots on X-rays, but have a good idea what they are or how they may affect a given scenario (like changing the cause of an accident).
BrunoVI 7 months ago
Things got better a long, long time ago. The majority of med-school students when I went to college in the 1980s were female. Men do still dominate certain, high-paid fields, however.
RosaTheWitch 7 months ago (edited)
Here in the UK, 2024 was the first year where female doctors outnumbered men in the same profession. Not by much, admittedly, but I think it's a real achievement. Certain specialities still tend to be filled by men - including obstetrics and gynecology, because a lot of female doctors don't want to be 'pigeonholed' or 'bottlenecked' based on their own sêx.
Load More Replies... #5
I may be late to the party but I finally have a good story to tell!
In medical school, my group’s cadaver was an 80+ year old female who was EXTREMELY unfit. Morbidly obese with muscles half the size of any other cadavers. Her pectoral muscles were paper thin, to get some reference. We figured she was bedridden during her last few months, which would somewhat explain these findings.
When we started our neurology unit and began to dissect the infratemporal fossa, I discovered a small metal pellet under the skin behind her right ear. My tank mates and I went on to find dozens of these metal pellets strewn around her head’s anatomy, with some lodged into the cranium and others in the bones of her face.
We contacted her living relatives to get some clarification and they ended up revealing that when this lady and her brother were children (they said she was 8 years old) they were playing with an old decorative rifle that the family had mounted above the fireplace. Long story short, the brother accidentally discharged the rifle into the girl’s face :(
The aftermath was this lady was blind and wheelchair bound for the rest of her life, and the pellets weren’t all removed. It was an interested dissection with that information from then on, but a sobering moment in reminding our class that our cadavers are humans with their own struggles and rich lives. If you’re considering donating your body to science, please know that we don’t take the responsibility lightly and a million thanks aren’t enough.
I have more stories if anyone is curious!
Edit: I should add that her granddaughter made a point of saying this lady did not hold a grudge on her brother, and they lived full lives on happy terms :).
Jorie 7 months ago
A family member took Gross Anatomy and the cadavers were treated with the utmost respect. No jokes or inappropriate remarks were allowed...automatic dismissal. At the end of the course, a ceremony was held for the souls who had donated their bodies for teaching purposes.
BeesEelsAndPups 7 months ago
My mom is a retired doctor. She pretty much told me the opposite. Of course she went to med school in the late 60s, so I'm sure things have changed.
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Scott Rackley 7 months ago
Could have been a rat shot cartridge in a rifle
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KieLeaHar 5 months ago
I’m Australian. My parents have 3 kids. The 2 oldest are about 20 months apart and I came along almost 4 and almost 6 years after (I was a mistake— or since my mum hates me saying that, she says a marvellous unplanned miracle… Yeah… Okay LOL ).. anyway, the 2 oldest morons have literally tried to kiII each other and me countless times.. I’ve never tried on either —myself, another story… When I was 9- just before the Port Arthur M******e, my father owned three rifles. But he always told us they were fake/replicas. Anyway, he went away to work as he always did, he worked away all the time and he was gone less than a day, my mum went down the road to the shop which was less than five minutes away… I was nine years old. I was sitting at the kitchen table, the two oldest had been arguing as usual and then they had separated and then the middle one had come upstairs and started screaming at me which I wasn’t listening… Then he walked in with the rifle and was aiming it around the room….
KieLeaHar 5 months ago
I didn’t know they were fake or real. I was nine. He started screaming at me, I told him to go away and leave me alone. This was way before mobiles so I couldn’t call my mum to come home.. he got angry at me because I wouldn’t respond so eventually he ended up just walking up beside me and holding it to my head… One yelling word after another he was swearing at me calling me every name of the son and eventually he just said “you know what you’re gonna die today say goodbye.’ Then he pulled the trigger and started laughing… I. WAS. NINE!! When Mum ❤️👯♂️🐥 got home I was obviously hysterical, he was lying about it saying he did nothing wrong of course. My mum ring my father at work. My mum my father drove the 12.5 hours home in under nine hours. In that time my mum had hit the guns in the roof and by the time he got home he had found a buyer for them and they were gone within half an hour of him getting home.
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MistBorn 7 months ago
But should it have been on the patient’s medical history, given the severe consequences of the shot I’m pretty sure they went to a doctor, and in that case it would have been on her chart, unless it was purposefully hidden from the students.
Shark Lady 7 months ago
Not necessarily, the woman had 80 years of medical history and when the records were crossed over to digital a lot were lost or not included depending on time lapsed.
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#6
Training in the Medical Examiners office. Elderly woman found dead by herself in her home. There was nothing suspicious so I was given the case. Took out all the organs, dissected everything, completely unremarkable. I cut through the larynx as the last step before I could clean up and finish the case and boom, giant piece of chicken lodged in her windpipe. Died choking on dinner.
Glen Ellyn 7 months ago
Once, when I was on my own, I choked on a piece of food. I knew I'd have to save myself, and I was smart enough to give myself a variation of the Heimlich maneuver. I stood behind a nearby chair, bent over the chair back and thrust my abdomen onto it several times. It was a little painful (wood chair) but it dislodged the food.
Ahnjunwan 7 months ago
You are lucky, that rarely works because most people can not stop the reflex to clench their muscles
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Emilu 7 months ago
My Nan died from choking on food. She had Parkinson's as well, so that made it even harder for her to try and dislodge the food in her throat.
Tom De Paul 7 months ago
People with Parkinsons (and ALS) often die by choking on their own spit. How horrific. The stuff nightmares are made of.
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Peeka_Mimi 7 months ago
Living alone and getting older that scares me. I have learned that you can give yourself the Heimlich Maneuver by running your abdomen into a chair.
LtKernelPanic 7 months ago
If you're in the US and start choking with nobody around dial 911 and try to get outside. If you can make some sort of noise or even do SOS (short, long, short- yes I know that's the simplified version but any dispatcher with a brain will realize what is it) on the keypad once someone answers to signal you need help. If nothing else hang up and call back several times. They will send the police to investigate a 911 hangup and several likely means there's some sort of emergency and the caller can't respond for some reason. Getting outside is really important because in addition to it being easier for first responders to find you it's also possible you may be able to flag down a passerby for help too.
Tom De Paul 7 months ago
By the time help arrives, you'll be dead. A fast response time is still 4 minutes.
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#7
My wife is a pathologist assistant and during her schooling carried out the autopsy of a newborn that died minutes after birth. The mother was desperate for a child and had a history of multiple miscarriages at different terms. This was her first time making it full term and all prenatal checkups revealed no problems. The delivery was difficult, but successful, and baby was alive for a short time. Skip to autopsy. All signs point to baby being fully developed. Get to the abdominal cavity and the liver is lacerated and hemorrhage everywhere. During the difficult delivery the resident used too much force with the forceps to pull the baby out. The ruptured liver the caused the baby to bleed out internally.
Wife was enthusiastic about autopsy up to this point, now has no interest.
Jenny 7 months ago
I shall just leave this BBC story here. This is a rare occurrence but has happened more times than it should: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-44357023 "An unborn baby was decapitated after a Dundee doctor chose the wrong method of delivery, a tribunal has ruled."
Littlemiss 7 months ago
I remember reading about this. That poor family and child.
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Roxy222uk 7 months ago
After multiple miscarriages I had my babies (one of whom I carried to term with the help of blood thinning daily injections) at home, thank you very much. Trained and experience midwife on hand, hospital nearby, but absolutely no likelihood of an obstetrician going in with unnecessary interventions.
Melanie Zwerg 7 months ago
There was no risk. All the prenatal checkups revealed no problems. There was nothing against vaginal birth.
Load More Replies... Senjo Krane 7 months ago
Should have had a C/Section. Again, South Africa is ahead of the rest of the world in this respect.
Flexi Panda 5 months ago
C section bears many unnecessary risks for both mum and the baby. This is not a good attitude, C section should be only used when inevitable
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#8
When my parents were in medical school they attended an autopsy of a patient who had died in a car accident
Autopsy revealed that apparently this guy had survived a chest shot in Vietnam years ago that the surgeons/medics left in rather than perform risky surgery, the accident had migrated the bullet to his heart and was ruled the cause of death.
DeShotz 7 months ago (edited)
The crew that came to Washington DC annually to add names to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall were hanging out at the bar I worked at and they cited this sort of thing was why they were adding names so many decades after the war ended.
Joe Reaves 7 months ago
Similar to the way the Columbine shooting death toll just went up by one and a ew years ago Reagan's press secretary James Brady's death was listed as homicide because he died from complications from the injury he received during the failed assassination attempt 4 decades ago.
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Dariusz M. D. 7 months ago
How exactly did the bullet migrate? What's the mechanism? Just creepy curious.
#9
Forensic pathologist here. Two come to mind:
-I had just moved back to my home state where family lives. Get a case with a man with a distinctive last name in the family tree. I put a text out to my mom to see if we were related, but before she texted back I pulled the sheet back and already knew; he looked like me. It was my great uncle.
-Get a case where it's a "house fire" death. On exam he's got multiple, textbook stab & incised wounds. I spend the next 30 minutes getting ~~gaslighted~~ quizzed by PD about "Are you *sure*?" because they thought this was a straightforward house fire. Un-fun fact: fires not an uncommon way for people to try to conceal a homicide.
Thee8thsense 7 months ago (edited)
Only attempt to conceal a homicide, but truth is revealed if the investigators know what they are doing.
Roberta Surprenant 7 months ago
Too true, a friend set trailer on fire after stabbing his wife. He had brain tumor, died of it in prison.
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Shark Lady 7 months ago
No soot in the lungs points to the person being dead before the fire started. I have seen so many true crime documentaries where someone tried to cover up murder with fire.
Jenny 7 months ago
You can suffer knife wounds and not die immediately. If you are unable to summon help, or help yourself to get outside, then someone could set fire to the building with you in it, and the smoke gets to you before you bled out.
Load More Replies... jasper 7 months ago
911 here. We had a case where a guy killed his ex-girlfriend and his friend who were now dating, with a sword. Set the house on fire to cover it up. Kinda hard to cover up when one is missing their head... Had to testify in court on that one because he called 911 pretending he just heard about the fire and wanted to know if his friends were okay. Yah, no.
Joe Reaves 7 months ago
OK that's beyond 'normal' ignorance of forensics and a complete new level of stupidity. Did he think you wre all going to assume the head walked off on its own?
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#10
I did the autopsy of both a robber and his victim. The robber shot the victim in the back when he tried to escape in a motorcycle, and the robber was shot by the police in the exact same situation.
What's interesting is that they both died by exactly the same lesion. Both of them had their 4th lumbar vertebra shattered and their aorta (main artery of the body) sectioned at the same level. I thought of it like an extreme example of instant karma.
#11
My dad used to perform autopsies.
His best story was that they were brought a body that has no real indication of any issues. After examining the body, the only thing of note was that there was blood coming out of the guys r****m. They begin the autopsy and the guys organs are completely liquidified and the body cavity is filled with lead shot. It became apparent really quickly that someone had shoved a shotgun up his a*s and pulled the trigger.
This was in the 70’s and I still have to wonder what this guy did to p**s someone off enough to get a shotgun up his a*s.
Claire Collymore 7 months ago
Why are we censoring medical/biological words? If the word r****m is inappropriate enough to be censored then why is it appropriate to post a story about a man getting shot in the b*m?
The Other Guest 7 months ago
And apparently it's inappropriate to say bum on BP as well.
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Tammy Ralph 7 months ago
Any one see I'll spit on your grave? A group of man r-a-p-e a woman and she hunts them down one by one and one of them dies the same way as the guy above.
Peeka_Mimi 7 months ago
That's apparently the worst way to die. I know this because I've seen, "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead."
#12
Former homicide detective here. Suspicious death, 30-ish male found alone by cleaning staff in the back row of a sparsely attended sci-fi movie. Strange scratching wounds around/in mouth. Some petechiae in eyes and on cheeks, but no signs of strangulation. No obvious signs of chronic illness or disease. Presented as healthy, normal adult male. Found on his person was a wallet with normal contents, and a single cancelled movie ticket, indicating he went alone. Weird, spy movie s**t going on here.
Autopsy: a large amount of popcorn compacted in his esophagus. Like a half cup. Dude was apparently excited by the movie, stuffing popcorn in his mouth, and choked. The scratch marks around/in his mouth were self inflicted, trying to dig out popcorn (verified via fingernail scrapings, his was only DNA present). Loud movie, he was in the back, no one saw or heard him choke.
I’ve never eaten popcorn again.
Tabitha 7 months ago
He may also have gotten excited at a particular scene and inhaled before swallowing, and a large enough piece lodged in his throat and blocked it.
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Moira Munguia 6 months ago
I use chopsticks to eat popcorn as I tended to stuff my face without thinking. I live alone and don't want to be found choked on popcorn 🍿
chunky hoey 7 months ago
Popcorn are quite dry.....I have swallow problem and it has nothing to do with acid reflux either. So always have drinks in hand just to be safe.
#13
I was an investigator for a state medical examiner for just over 2 years. Had a mom that had “drank herself to death” according to the husband after relapsing on Mother’s Day weekend. I just felt like something was off. Sent her for an autopsy. Had a ruptured liver where dude had essentially beat her till she internally bled to death.
Later, while out on bail, he stole a semi truck, crashed it in a pond, got out shooting at a deputy, and they killed him.. saved the tax payers a good chunk of money.
Roxy222uk 7 months ago
Gah, I hate when it ends with the perpetrator managing to bring about their own death. It's cheating, checking out as soon as their fun is over. I want them to have long, boring, life with nothing to do but think about what they've done.
Huddo's sister 7 months ago
I was thinking the same thing. He got off easy.
Load More Replies... #14
Working in the ER, young man comes in, one of four in a nasty auto accident. Speed+inexperience=car flipped, passengers ejected. One expired shortly after coming into the ER.
I transported the body down to the morgue. First time I had felt a human being with all their bones broken. Felt like trying to lift sheets full of rolling bowling balls.
Once in the morgue I commented how unscathed he looked; he really did.... some dirt, the ET tube, not much else. ME offered I could view the autopsy if interested.
I was interested.
The first thing they noted were the xrays of the fractures, basically all the major bones including multiple multiple rib fractures. When they opened the body the organs were described as near liquified.
It wasn’t until weeks later I got the whole story from the EMT who had been on scene. Seems the passenger had been 1/2 in 1/2 out the window while the car had been flipping. He was just days shy of 17. The driver was just days past 16, his parents had bought him a brand new car, he’d had it less than 72hrs. Driver lived, though with severe brain damage, front and rear passengers died, rear drivers side passenger survived with not too much permanent (physical) damage.
I have friends who’s kids are getting their drivers license. I never pass up a chance to drop that story on them. I’ve seen a lot of f’d up things in my healthcare career. That is one of the grand total of 3 that make me tear up, and it’s one from early on.
Norm Gilmore 7 months ago (edited)
I'd put money on it that the unscathed survivor had been wearing their seat belt. https://www.aa.co.nz/about/aa-research-foundation/programmes/seatbelt-use/
T'Mar of Vulcan 7 months ago
Well, remember Princess Diana. The only person who survived that wreck was the person wearing his seatbelt.
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Tabitha 7 months ago
Never EVER buy your 16 year old a brand new car, and especially not a powerful one, ffs! They are too young, too new to driving, too stupid to be able to resist temptation, and too underdeveloped brain-wise to use critical thinking to realize the stupid stunt they’re planning to pull could k**l them and everyone else with them. Let them drive the old minivan, or buy Grandma’s old sedan, or if you absolutely must get them a new car, make sure it’s something small and incapable of driving much faster than the local speed limit. Do NOT get them a powerful and/or sporty car. This goes double if your 16 year old is a boy. That’s not sexism, that’s statistics.
Huddo's sister 7 months ago (edited)
Where I live people aren't allowed to drive anything over V4 until they are off probation, at least 22 years old for this very reason
Load More Replies... Panda Bear 7 months ago
Always wear your seat belt. Don’t drive tried, drunk, or high. Stay off your phone. Give aggressive drivers space. Follow the speed limit. Don’t make your family bury you from preventable means.
Tabitha 7 months ago
Just don’t act the fool behind the wheel. Life isn’t a movie and you’re not a professional stunt driver executing a well-rehearsed stunt on a closed set with other professionals, including medics.
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Tropical Tarot 7 months ago (edited)
That first comment. My dad died in an auto sccident 5 years ago.
Bec 7 months ago
My state now has a 180 day probationary period for drivers under 18 years old where they cannot drive with passengers unless they have a licensed driver over 25 in front with them, and there are some restrictions on late night driving. In other words, they need 6 months driving experience before running around with their teenage friends
Danielle 7 months ago
I always think there should be a limit on powerful cars until you have been driving for a few years too. The number of times you hear of accidents where it is an inexperienced driver who has crashed some brand new BMW or something. (There would need to be exceptions for like tractors or work trucks I guess)
Load More Replies... Bleau 7 months ago
We had big heavy cars, made of metal that really didn't speed quickly. (Yes they were v8 but unless you sooped them up) No airbags or belts. You would survive. Now these cars 0-60mph in secs, made of plastic. You put a kid that never drove esp at 16/17 w friends, loud music, distractions. It's so dangerous.
Sue Phillips 7 months ago
Parents should never buy a new car for a child. If they haven't worked for it, it holds no value for them, and they drive it like it holds no value for anyone. No worries about speeding, DWI, just being stupid, etc. If they actually have to contribute something, it will mean something to them. Also, a used car will drive just as well.
Huddo's sister 7 months ago
Living somewhere that won't let 16 year olds drive without a fully licenced driver (Over 22 at least) it makes me sad that this can be a regular occurrence elsewhere. I'm not saying we don't get accidents like this, there are teens who will do this (even in stolen cars) without having a licence. Even young people on their probationary licence (so can drive on their own) do it, but we try to make it harder for them. Probationary drivers used to be the highest percentage of dangerous drivers and had the highest fatalities, but then the government changed the rules. The number of years they are on their probationary licence has been extended to four years and in that time they aren't allowed to have any alcohol in their system. This and other rules (like how many passengers allowed) has meant they have to think more before they take the car out. If they are going to be drinking they need a designated driver/ride share.
Huddo's sister 7 months ago
These rules have led to that section of drivers no longer being the most dangerous section of drivers in the state. I think more places should consider changes (not necessarily exactly the same) because young people don't make great decisions and sometimes they need education or the choice taken from them.
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ZestyBison 7 months ago
Right but when you reiterate that story it doesn't always sink in because the person you're talking to is different and special, which isn't untrue if you think about it. However nobody is immune from a tragic death.
Liz Butt 7 months ago (edited)
I've watched a couple of youtubes last night. One was a young guy, 19 going on 20, went out at night and did over 90 in a 30 zone. Went through a red light and rammed into a father who had his kids in the car. He had to be cut out of the car because his legs were trapped by the steering wheel. You could hear him moaning in the front seat. The young guy was calm and collected. Lied about how fast he was going. Not a hint of remorse for what he did. The father died on the way to the hospital. Oh man. That video did me in.
#15
Not a doctor, but my family requested an autopsy of my grandfather so we could (hopefully) get some answers about how he died. Our family has a history of unusual medical conditions (shout-out to my ancestors who were MASSIVELY inbred until a hundred or so years ago), so we wanted to see what made him so sick leading up to his death.
We never got a clear answer, unfortunately, but we did get an AMAZING summary of their findings. In the autopsy report, they listed all of my grandfather’s body parts. Now, Papa was a large man. It stands to reason that his body parts would be a bit larger than the average guy.
The list of body parts went something along the lines of “heart - above average, liver - above average, brain - above average” all the way down to “testicles - average.”
I’ve never laughed harder at average-sized testicles.
Bored Trash Panda 7 months ago
I wish I could quadruple like for the Young Frankenstein reference!!!
Load More Replies... Roxy222uk 7 months ago
Can an autopsy just be requested when there is no requirement for one? Does it have to be paid for privately?
Huddo's sister 7 months ago
I think my stepbrother had an autopsy as requested by family, as his cause of death was respiratory issues/pneumonia but later found out that neither mould or covid were the cause of the pneumonia, which is what his parents expected. I don't remember if they did get an answer on what caused the pneumonia though.
Load More Replies... #16
I’m a veterinarian and sometimes I do necropsy (basically autopsy for animals) and one of the more notable case involved a prized Wagyu cow that died mysteriously. Wagyu cows are very expensive to rear and fetch a good price at the slaughterhouse.
After cutting her open, I found metal wires extending from her stomach into her heart. It’s what we call ‘hardware disease’. Apparently the cow decided that eating metal wires for constructing fences was a good idea.
Normally the farmhands are quite good at keeping these hazards away from the inquisitive bovines but I guess slip up do happen from time to time.
geezeronthehill 7 months ago
Cow magnets are used internally to gather up ingested iron and steel into an artificial gastrolith, but a longer wire would be deadly.
Bill Swallow 7 months ago
Concur. We had a few cows with multiple internal magnets, one with four.
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Tom De Paul 7 months ago (edited)
From a dear friend (now deceased): you raise cattle; children are reared. Rick would have gotten such a kick from your post. He often corrected people's usage, but almost always when they made the opposite claim.
Lazy Panda 2 7 months ago
Is that common across Uk-American-Australian English? I'd said hand-rear a kitten.
Load More Replies... #17
Masters in forensic pathology here. You'd be surprised to know the number of people that have life threatening issues that never went diagnosed and that they didn't die from. Seen an older guy who died of pneumonia in hospital. On autopsy the guy had both an elarged heart and a couple of medium sized aneurysms in the brain. Another guy in his ~70s apparently came into the ER and had chest pain then died shortly after. Dies of a heart attack but also had cancer.
In less natural circumstances though...saw a guy who had been shot in the head a couple of times. Three definite entries and a blown out skull but police only found one bullet. Couldn't find the other bullet in his head at all. Assumed the police missed it.
Went on as normal with the autopsy until we got to the chest cavity. The other bullet was just chilling beside his lung. Turns out it entered the skull, hit the inside, ricocheted down his neck and into the chest. That was pretty wild.
Kim Steffen 7 months ago
Once inside the skull, a. 22 round doesn't have enough power to exit the skull, so it bounces around inside, scrambling the brain.
Heir of Durin 7 months ago
Idk much about physics, but it’s crazy the bullet hit hard enough to bounce back and forth so many times but not go through the other side of skull. Wild!
Lowrider 56 7 months ago
I knew a guy shot in the stomach with .22 caliber pistol. It went in just above his bellybutton and came out of his trapazoid muscle. Apparently the bullet bounced around inside him. Larger caliber bullets tend to go right thru you. A .22 or .25 caliber will ricochet inside you.
Load More Replies... Bleau 7 months ago (edited)
Well when you go to the Drs there in a hurry, don't listen, talk down an try to make you feel like an idiot esp if your a women. It's no surprise what's in us. Ex; went for brain injury called a hypochondriac, mri came back positive, he thru me out of office. Dentist pulled wrong tooth. Another dentist started root canal Fri called me Sun to see if I had any Xtra pills, he OD'd that night. Had another hold my script in lew of getting sxxx, I knew it was coming so I had stashed enough till I could find another. Shrink was a perv to. Etc......Yeah I dislike Dr's
#18
While in medical school: We had to observe an autopsy and could assist. One of the lectures was to observe for head trauma. You do this by hitting the skull with a hard object (scissor or the like). A hollow sound is normal but a "dull" sound indicates trauma.
One of the other students did this exam and found a "dull" sound. The coroner had not yet himself examined the person and was very surprised, as he had not been informed by the police of head trauma.
They then continued to examine the head and they found a gun shot wound through the skull. All of a sudden the person was a "crime scene" and they had to call the police again and leave the person as untouched as possible.
I believe it was later confirmed that the person had shot himself, but it could have been a m****r.
Edit: this blew up! Thanks for all the upvotes. As someone pointed out there must have been some information that was missed between the police and coroner. I myself was not present , but I do believe the story is true, as it is now a lecture in why you should always examine for skull trauma and not just assume something before knowing.
Also edit: there seem to be a lot of interest so I have added another story which is unfortunately true, but crazy.
Niamh_ie 7 months ago
The other story mentioned in the article - https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/ZVe1xAEcaW
Lene 7 months ago
What an unfortunate death. Thabks for the link, Niamh_ie
Load More Replies... Scott Rackley 7 months ago
In my line of work we have to "ring" grinding wheels before installation to check for cracks or voids. TIL that pathologists "ring" skulls.
Bleau 7 months ago
I thought an xray was the 1st thing before they even open the bag in questionable cases.
#19
I took forensic lectures so I saw quite a bit of crazy s**t, but the things that stick is an autopsy revealing a history of abuse, pain and violence.
A little more 'funny': a skeletton was found in the near mountains, it was very clear he died in an accident 20+ years ago, however he had to be identified via DNA. Turned out his dad was not his dad, but his uncle. Sparked a whole public family drama show, cause the family was well known in my area.
#20
Sheep farmer, I have to know how to do a necropsy for when something dies to know if it's something that could spread. Had a ewe fall over dead after losing a ton of weight and after treating her for everything under the sun. She would gasp for air and struggled to breathe but antibiotics, steroids and anti-inflammatory d***s didn't touch it. She finally passed away and I cut her open to see what the hell happened fully expecting to see her lungs riddled with s**t.
Her heart was 5 times the normal size and hard as a river stone. My guess is she'd had that issue her whole life and it didn't k**l her until she was 2.
Jen Schurman 7 months ago
I had a ram die of a pituitary tumor at 2. He had seizures when he went into rut, but no other time of year
#21
My friend once cremated a lady and when they pulled the table out there were 3 sets of forceps sitting there.
Most likely she died in surgery but I always thought it was crazy those were left in and whatever metal they're made of clearly has a higher melting point than cremation temps.
Bleau 7 months ago
That's why everything is tagged an scanned right down to gauze. Before, after.
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Lyone Fein 7 months ago
It is not uncommon for various surgical instruments to get left behind inside of people.
Lucy Reeves 6 months ago
Am I right in saying that the circulating nurse should have counted everything that was used in a procedure?
JK 7 months ago
Not really. OP states patient had "likely...died in surgery" meaning they died *on* the operating table. So not much poutn counting utensils in/out when the patient is deceased. Theyre just little forceps, not like the ones used in childbirth, small clamps to stop/stem blood flow during the operation
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#22
This story circulates every year at my medical school.
A body came in with a gunshot wound to the chest. There was no exit wound. They tried to locate the bullet during the autopsy. No success. They then did a whole scan (X-ray or CT) of the upper chest/abdomen/pelvis. No bullet.At that point someone said f**k it lets scan the whole body.
Lo and behold the bullet was detected in the popliteal fossa (area behind the knee). It had embolized/traveled from the heart all the way down the arterial system to the knee where it got stuck in one of the narrower blood vessels.
#23
Not a doctor but recently I was reading about Hiroshima/Nagasaki and one person’s perspective. When their family member who experienced the disaster died many years later, they were cremated and left in their ashes were tiny pieces of broken glass and metal from the initial explosions.
#24
Oh my God this just reminded me
I'm a vet student and we have a pathology class where we do autopsies on dead animals (most of them submitted by local farms to see if there's something that may be contagious, or to see if the death was a result of the way of living, some owners wanting to know what happened to their pets, etc). At first it's kind of disturbing but after a few autopsies you get used to it. So anyway, during class one of the technicians brings in a big box, and you can hear chirps from the inside. Our professor was still focused on the first autopsy of a dog, but I managed to slip a bit closer to the box. Little chiks! The were adorable so I stuck around to observe them. The technician then moves them all into a plastic container and asks me to hold the lid. I figured it was to prevent the babies from jumping out so I gladly helped. However, before I can even process what's going on, she tells me to pop open the lid just enough for her to slide a hose in, and I automatically do so. She then tells me not to flinch. I saw that the hose was connected to a big red cylinder but didn't put two and two together until it was too late. Next thing I know the loud PRSSSSSST sound comes and there's cold white mist coming from the container, the loud chirps getting fainter.
The chicks were sent in by a farm as specimens because there was a disease or something that contaminated the whole farm. They needed to perform an autopsy on them. The technician was had to find an efficient way to preserve the specimens. She froze them to death with a fire extinguisher. I then knew what it was like to be an accessory to murder.
I firmly believe I will never, for as long as I live, forget the dread of hearing chirps getting fainter and fainter until they stopped altogether.
If you really really really love animals, don't go to vet school.
Kim Kermes 7 months ago
My dad once said my younger sister loved all animals, so maybe she should be a vet. I looked at him in horror and said it would k**l her. He understood. I could have put it more gently, my sister got her sensitivity from him.
Helen Rohrlach 7 months ago
I did work experience at a vet and they had to euthanize a healthy cat that couldn't be rehomed. That was hard to watch.
Load More Replies... CatD 7 months ago
Thank you, strange that a vet student wouldn't know that...
Load More Replies... Beth Wheeler 7 months ago
Oh that's so sad and cruel at the same time. I can understand the farmer needing to know what killed his chickens but to send a bunch of chicks to be frozen to death is horrible.
DC 7 months ago
Don't wanna be THAT guy always, but ... as cruel and disturbing as this is, their fate was by far less cruel than the usual, everyday, treatment of chicks in the chicken industry.
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Alexandra 7 months ago
When my son was still a boy he always wanted to become a vet. He even talked to our vet about becoming a vet. Until our vet told him part of his job would be putting sick animals to sleep. My son was a bit matter-of-fact about it until our two cats had to be put down. Then he understood this was not something he could handle.
Neopet22 7 months ago
As a child I always wanted to be a vet but as ii grew older,I realised I couldn't handle it. Watching animals dying,suffering or euthanizing them sounded like an awful experience. I am sure there is reward in actually helping them and saving them but the former is much scarier compared to the latter.
CatD 7 months ago
Instead I took in and found homes for cats and dogs. Over 100 cats and 50 dogs. Even saved a few birds and opossum.
Load More Replies... Bill Swallow 7 months ago
It takes a special kind of steel in the soul, in a good way, for a loving person to do what is necessary in cases like this, to accept doing harm for the sake of saving others. Good people who can do this pay a cost to their emotional well-being that accumulates over time.
Premislaus de Colo 7 months ago
These chicks we culled in order to save the rest of the flock. I understand the sentiment, but think of all the lives they saved (in case of contagious disease, or severe bacterial infection)
#25
Medical student here and this story is from anatomy class. One of the cadavers in our class died of cancer and when we took out the gentleman’s liver it was very large and full of bumps all over. The liver itself was also hard as a rock. The poor mans cancer had spread all over his liver and was full of tumours. It really hit home that this was what cancer was like and demonstrated it’s pure destructive nature.
DaisyBee 7 months ago
It truly is insidious! My uncle is suffering from a brain tumor at the minute and he’s lost complete control of his right side - his leg and hand have essentially curled up and cannot function. All because of a tiny bump in his brain (can’t recall the size but it’s not large). An absolutely crazy disease.
Clown fish 7 months ago
My mum only had 10% of her liver left because of cancer it was pumping poisoned blood back to her heart and she went in to full organ failure
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#26
Medical examiner here. This probably isn't a big "wow" revelation but it certainly made an impact on me. Very early in my career, I did an exam on another doctor who worked at the hospital where I trained. I didn't know this gentleman personally but was acquainted with him by reputation; he was a very happy-go-lucky sort, much loved by everyone in his department. He died unexpectedly at a young age of what turned out to be a d**g o******e on pharmaceuticals he had been diverting from the hospital. I don't think anybody saw that coming, myself included. It was a lesson to me that anybody can fall victim to a*******n, and that it's hard to know what anybody's private struggles are.
Khavrinen 7 months ago
They've been censoring that one for a long time. Apparently the mere thought of "illicit substances" is absolutely terrifying.
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Cindy Brick 7 months ago
It's getting harder and harder to read these entries, BP... we're adults. We can handle words. Please use them!
Huddo's sister 7 months ago
What do you think led to the tight restrictions (at least where I live) of d**g access by medical personnel? Enough doctors and nurses taking d***s from hospital supplies to use themselves or sell. There was at least one anaesthetist I know of in Melbourne in the 90s who got addicted to d***s and therefore gave his patients less anaesthetic than they needed during surgery.
DC 7 months ago (edited)
Of a total different field ... I know a well-reputed professor, teaching his subject (then, now, he's retired), among the most popular professors, the students really loved his lectures, and I attended, if time allowed, even after passing the subject, when a break was too long to do nothing, but too short to go home ... who was add icted to a chemical that Bayer had developed in the late 19th century, and named as if it were the essence of being a hero, made into medicine. Almost nobody knew, and I only knew because of circumstances that have all odds against them, but to keep this anonymous enough, I'll leave it at this. There is no reliable sign that somebody is hooked, or that somebody is not hooked, for that matter, unless you have gapless surveillance over them, or take blood samples as often as you like. There's, even, a lot of methods to actively hide that fact from everyone around, and ... it's not that I could advise against being stiff with such critical information. You never know what's gonna be, ...
CatD 7 months ago
It's like someone who drinks being a functional alcoholíc.
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Madison Taylor 7 months ago
OMG! Can we please get over the censoring of words? Everytime a word is censored, somebody is totally shocked and has to comment about it. Yes, words that probably don't need to be are censored. We all understand what the word is. Just read the story and move on!
Francesa Miller 7 months ago
Actually, sometimes I have to read the comments to understand what word was censored. I'm also convinced that making readers stop and puzzle out a word makes it more prominent rather than diminishing it.
Load More Replies... Liz Butt 7 months ago
Reading stuff on Bored Panda, you need to be good at working out what all the fkg deleted letters are. I am tired of trying to work out words. Adiction is not a bad word. It is a fact of life and so is d rug o verdose. I wish they would stop molly coddling us and let us read the story how it was written. We are old enough to take it guys.
#27
Late to the thread so this will probably get buried:
Disclaimer: I am a doctor, but not a "autopsy doctor" and had never really considered pathology as a specialty when I was in medical school. This event happened in anatomy lab when I was in medical school.
In the preclinical years of medical school, most medical schools have students enroll in anatomy lab where we dissect cadavers as part of the course. One of the anatomy labs had a cadaver who had passed away from complications from kidney failure (according to the identification tab).
While that anatomy team was dissecting some of the leg and buttock muscles, they found a bullet in the gluteus medius. No idea how it got there and totally unrelated to the cause of death.
I like to imagine the guy signing paperwork to donate his body to science, thinking that the med students dissecting his butt would get a funny surprise.
#28
I am not a pathologist but when my father died from drowning, it was noted he had acute cirrhosis of the liver. The corner also removed a bullet from between his heart and spine that dad recieved in Viet Nam. It was very degraded. He had also lost a thumb and several feet of intestine there, the evidence of which was noted in the report.
Dad had served 22 years in the Army, and had been awarded the Purple Heart three times. He lived a hard life after and it was speculated he would have passed soon of cirrhosis of the liver had he not drown.
Mel in Georgia 7 months ago
I would call this another fatality caused by the Vietnam War. Very sad.
Tabitha 7 months ago (edited)
Same. Had two brothers serve in Vietnam. They were the first two of my four older brothers to pass away. One from stomach cancer, and the other from a heart attack. Both were in their early- to mid-50s. Both had been exposed to Agent Orange, one also had contracted malaria while in country (marine running recon). I say Vietnam had something to do with their early deaths. Just the stress of combat alone would epigenetically trigger DNA for a host of health issues passed down generation to generation. Health issues they may have avoided had they not been drafted (neither actually wanted to go, and I have often wished they’d just hightailed it across the Canadian Border instead of get on their respective buses to boot camp), and exposed to combat. I may have been a child at the time, but I remember being so incredibly worried about them until they finally came home, though emotionally they were noticeably very changed. No wonder, considering the s**t they had seen.
Load More Replies... #29
Here's my personal favorite from forensics class. A s******l guy rode a bicycle for about 50 miles to get to the middle of nowhere. There, he climbed a radio tower (bringing his bicycle along to the top), drank a lethal dose of poison (mercuric cyanide if memory serves), then shot himself with 2 handguns simultaneously: one to the chest, one to the skull… and jumped.
…Died days later of *hypothermia.*.
Kathrin Pukowsky 7 months ago
Poor guy. I once read a testimony from a man who jumped off the Golden Gate bridge. While he was still falling, he realised what a horrible mistake he'd made and although almost all his bones were broken when they fished him out, he knew he'd been lucky and found a new appreciation for life. This guy must've felt like life was denying him even the little courtesy of a quick demise.
superfluous 7 months ago
I believed it all except the part about taking the bike up the tower. /s
Catharina Geerts 7 months ago
Can't you change at leas a few *** to characters? I have no idea what a s******l guy might be. Hell, I have even trouble seeing if I have put the righti amount of *** in that word. As for the story, sounds like a terrible way to die.
Dariusz M. D. 7 months ago
IMO after you shot yourself in the head and in the chest, you are not jumping but rather falling.
#30
Worked at an animal hospital. They did necropsies for zoos all the time. An alligator died, and they shipped it to the hospital, refrigerated etc to stop the decay. They took it out and put it up on the table. After doing all the paperwork, they started opening up the alligator. After the first cut, the alligator opened its eyes. Turns out it wasn't dead, the zoo vet mistook an illness for death and the low temperature put it basically into a coma.
Edit: Unfortunately this is all the information I know on this story. It's been 7 years since I worked at that place.
Lena Flising 7 months ago
There was an alligator living at a Seafaring museum/Aquarium near where I grew up. She was more or less immobile for decades, and people thought that she was dead. Her handlers said that when she wanted food or when someone disturbed her, she could be very fast. She was probably born in 1921 and died in 1987.
superfluous 7 months ago
How qualified do you need to be to be a zoo vet? Are there many alligator illnesses that can be mistaken for death??? How do you absolutely declare an alligator dead? No heartbeat?
G A 7 months ago
Crocodilians can slow their heartbeats to next to nothing, so they can stay submerged for long periods. If they were also cold, then yes I can see that mistake happening.
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Speak easy buttercup 7 months ago
This sorta reminds me of when I lived in Fort Lauderdale a couple years ago and it got down to like 30ish degrees at Christmas time(which is nearly unheard of!) And we had Iguanapop warnings on the news which meant that you had to be careful walking under trees because the Iguanas and lizards and stuff would basically become immobile to the point they would just fall out of the trees! So me and a couple buddies gathered a bunch of them up and brought them in the house! A bunch of bored guys plus frozen Iguanas...what could possibly go wrong? 🤣🤣 well as soon as these things got to a certain temp ALL HÈLL BROKE LOOSE!! We ended up with broken lamps and I still have a scar where I had one whip me with it's tail! Moral of the story? Idk really...don't listen to your idiot roommates perhaps? Or be more respectful to nature! 🤣🤣 something like that! Lol
#31
I'm a former police officer and attended several autopsies to record info for investigation files.
One guy had been shot and killed so the cause of death was pretty plain, but the pathologists doing the autopsy found a tumor the size of a walnut on his brainstem. he said the guy would have been dead in a few months even if he hadn't been shot.
another guy was dead due to a steak knife being stabbed through is heart by his wife. she claimed she grabbed the knife because she was scared he was going to k**l her and when he lunged at her the knife "just went in". But when the doctor pointed out a half dozen or so marks that looked like freckles around the wound, he swabbed a developer solution that clearly showed they were tiny little poke marks. I was able then to get her to confess that he was goading her "go ahead, do it" until she hauled off and kabob'd him.
it's not always like TV shows where the autopsy is the "aha!" moment that solves a case, but sometimes it really is.
Grumpy Old Broad 7 months ago
It's about the only word left that won't get censored
Load More Replies... Carol Farrington 7 months ago
I wondered if officers ever actually attended autopsies or if that was just on tv.
#32
Not an autopsy doctor, but did take Anatomy and Physiology II with lab in college. The lab was working on cadavers being prosected by more advanced students. A prosection is the dissection of a cadaver (human or animal) or part of a cadaver by an experienced anatomist in order to demonstrate for students anatomic structure.
ANYway, one of the cadavers (we had a male and a female for obvious reasons) was a big ol' linebacker lookin dude. Like, and older bodybuilder type? IIRC his age at time of death was late 50s.
His heart has been removed by the anatomist , and we were examining it because it was very enlarged and contributed to his death. We all had to hold it in our hands to feel the heft, like size and weight, and compare it to the heft of the female's heart, which was normal sized, about like a large apple. The male's heart, for comparison, was the size of a small cantaloupe.
I went first, for whatever reason, and the instructor lifted the enlarged heart out of its preservative bath and placed it in my hands. I d**n near dropped the thing when it shocked me with what felt like a jolt of electricity. I (understandably, I think) made a startled noise, and the instructor took the heart back before I could juggle it onto the floor.
"Oh," she said. "I forgot to warn you, look out for the pacemaker."
Apparently when someone has a pacemaker there's a battery too and they don't bother taking it out/off. They just snip the leads and leave it there, so if you touch both bare leads you get a mild shock, even through your exam gloves.
That was a mildly disturbing experience.
casa fangio 7 months ago
not true, the pacemaker remains in the body, the heart itself can't shock you, specially if the leads were cut.
CatD 7 months ago
I would think they'd take out the battery pack during the PM.
Load More Replies... #33
Med student almost graduated here. A couple years ago i attended the pathological anatomy course and during a class the professor showed us some autopsies. Despite the tremendous smell of 4/5 consecutive autopsies, one of them was carried out on a homeless patient that died in the ER probably due to heart failure. The body had massive ascites (fliud in the abdomen), so at first he had to evacuate it. Imagine him cutting the abdomen and the yellow rancid liquid started to come out like a fountain. One of my colleagues fainted.
Then the next step was to examine the abnominal organs. Imagine the face of every person in the room when it became clear that the patient had some form of inherited polycistic disease and the liver and the kidneys were full of cysts. The liver weighted more than 10kg (normal weight 2-3kg) and the kidneys almost 3 kg each (normally 150g each). The professor was really shocked at the beginning, but then he really enjoyed cutting through the cysts in order to get samples, they popped like airball spreading liquid all over the place. Second collegue fainted.
The other ones were pretty standard, but i think i will remember forever this one, in particular that liver on the scale. I even took a picture but i can't find it anymore :(
Thee8thsense 7 months ago
My Mom was a gifted RN who wasn't shaken by much, but while attending an autopsy of a teenage girl with long, long hair, the Dr performing the procedure cut the skull and proceeded to lift it forward by holding the hair. My Mom said it was the closest she came to fainting in her life.
PeepPeep the duck 7 months ago
I had an old cyst pop yesterday 😂 smell made me gag, cannot imagine deeper internal cysts pus smell 🤮 one had ten years ago had green pus and it smelled so bad my cat got up gagged, death stared me and walked out of the room
#34
In college I took a figure drawing class and the teacher was adamant that you couldn’t draw the figure if you didn’t know what was in it so he drag us over to the anatomy lab and had the anatomy teacher show us two cadavers that were being dissected by their med students.
When it came time to ask questions of course “have you ever found something weird” in a body came up.
The story is as follows.
They get a body, and for legal reasons they aren’t told much about the person aside from medical history. They *were* told that the old man was a sort of rock star type and was a one hit wonder from his youth and to use extra discretion with him in particular/not tell the students who might recognize him. The lab is full of 20 year olds and so nobody recognized who he was (unsure if the teacher even knew but it didn’t sound like she did) or what his deal was so they wrote it off as non useful information aside from his lifestyle. He had d**g use and alcohol issues in his life and they were told he partied a lot. Cool.
The body has a raging b***r. Like 100% of the time. Teacher doesn’t think much of it aside from that he was particular endowed and everybody wrote it off as not important to their studies. So they go through the general dissection that they do. One kid wants extra credit and the teacher said sure, dissect his p***s/see why it’s hard still and write a report (apparently they don’t normally do that for that particular class so the p***s itself goes untouched from their dissections so it would have otherwise always been a mystery)
Kid finds an actual rod that he had medically inserted under the table (not in medical records) so that he would always have a b***r and could get it up while on d***s. They suspect it was done over 30-40 years prior to his death.
They removed it and keep it in the lab I believe to show their students as part of a section on under the table medical surgeries.
Anyways, that was probably the best day in figure drawing class I’ve ever had.
El Dee 7 months ago
Of course this can also be done for other reasons. Knew someone who had diabetes and had complications from it, he had the procedure done after surgery to the p***s which was infected. I don't know why he shared this with me..
Jnk 3 months ago
You mean like Tony Stark? Because this sounds more like aTetsuo kinda deal to me ;)
Load More Replies... Beth Wheeler 7 months ago
Soooooo he had an under the table IPP (inflatable penile implant) surgery is what it sounds like. When I worked in Urology it was about $40k and that was 15 years ago.
Upstaged75 7 months ago
Wow, I barely survived the naked model section of art class in college. (It was awkward because I knew the models - they were other students) Dead bodies would have put me over the edge! 😄
Catharina Geerts 7 months ago
Do the words always need to consists mostly of ***? I can't figure out what b***r means.
Shelley Colleen 7 months ago
Stallone has one of those "flexi-rods." Apparently, he got it put in after he ruined his "downstairs equipment" with steroids to build up for the later Rocky movies. There are n**e photos out there somewhere on the internet that show this. I've seen 'em.
#35
During my internship rotation a couple of years back, a 40 year old guy came in because he 'suddenly collapsed' while drinking with friends. He came in unresponsive, mouth bleeding, and not breathing, so we had to intubate him. For some reason, the endotracheal tube (the stiff tube placed inside the trachea to help the patient breathe) won't go in, but we managed to suction copious amounts of blood clots. After CPR (still with unsuccessful intubation so we had to bag him with a face mask), the patient was declared dead, and diagnosed with a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm. During the autopsy, they found out that the guy was apparently shot by a gun from the top of the head (the entry wound was obscured by his hair, and was barely bleeding at all), and the bullet somehow went through the back of the guys throat and made a hole behind the base of the tongue, which the endotracheal tube kept slipping into.
Tabitha 7 months ago
Oh s**t, yeah. You’re right. If this happened in the right neighborhood at midnight on New Years Eve, that very well could have been the case. Fireworks are bad enough, but shooting a gun straight up into the air means you could k**l someone and not know it.
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#36
As a student in the medical field, I had the opportunity to visit a cadaver lab. I was very surprised to see how many people had died from choking. Out of the twelve or so cadavers in the lab that day, at least 7 or 8 were from choking. I went home and immediately looked up how to perform self Heimlich.
Emery Walters 7 months ago
Yes as I figure you've looked it up by now; like leaning hard against a chair back? Looks like I'd better look it up too!
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arthbach 7 months ago
It seems people's natural inclination when they are choking is to move to a private space so they can try to throw up. If they can't dislodge it, they can't call for help as their airway is blocked. - - - If you start choking, let others know, and get them to slap you on the back. You have a far greater chance of survival if you have others with you.
Mistress Kupo 7 months ago
Don't ever slap someone on the back if they're choking. It can make the food break loose and go further down, it never brings it upwards. Slapping them on the back is like pulling the plug.
Load More Replies... Wild Cream 7 months ago
“A 2023 study by the National Safety Council found that choking has an average rate of 1.6 deaths per 100,000 population.”
Joanne Hudson 5 months ago
My dental hygienist taught me an exercise to prevent chocking. It worked. I kept black pepper in the kitchen to make me sneeze which also worked prior to that.
#37
Med student here. Had a guy OD on c*****e which he frequently used. Was an alcoholic for 30+ years and had a history of seizures. Evidently he had been hit in the head with a baseball as a young adult and never saw a doc. I went to take his brain out and this dude had a walnut sized hole in his skull. And the brain underneath looked like someone had taken an ice cream scoop to it. He had been walking around 30+ years with this hole in his head and having seizures bc of it. No wonder he started drinking. His liver was absolutely normal though.
#38
Not me but I read a story of a guy that drank anti freeze because he was freezing to death and it actually worked for a bit before he died a terrible death from the anti freeze.
Kim Kermes 7 months ago
If done soon enough, antifreeze poisoning can be reversed by copious doses of ethanol, usually in the form of vodka
XenoMurph 7 months ago
Dying by anti-freeze poisoning has always worried me, so I take preventative doses of the cure daily.
Load More Replies... #39
I’m not a doctor but my uncle(dads only brother) died when he was 17 in a car accident. In 1975. They did an autopsy and told my grandparents he died on impact and didn’t suffer. My dad personally knew the autopsy dr and he told him that he didn’t die on impact, he suffered for a bit and had internal bleeding and that’s what ultimately caused his death. My dad hasn’t and will never tell his parents.
Wild Cream 7 months ago
I think the rest of us were able to figure out the story just fine…
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#40
My auntie is a coroner and she was told to expect nothing more than a gunshot wound to a pregnant female. Which is what it was but the bullet had killed the woman and 9 month developed baby who had the bullet pass through and end up in the palm of its hand like it was holding it.
#41
I heard a story once about a guy who died, and completely unrelated to the 'main complaint' during the autopsy they found a grapefruit in his a*s
Apparently it had just been there the whole time.
Bi.Felicia 7 months ago
Umm, the poor grapefruit had been there for what whole time? How long is that, exactly?
Bill Swallow 7 months ago
... Brings back memories of that "What's that watermelon doing there?" scene in "Buckaroo Banzai" ... (NO, not like *that*!)
superfluous 7 months ago
The important questions are what was his main complaint and how big was the grapefruit?
#42
When I was in high school I was nominated to represent the school called the "Youth Leadership Program" that was organized by my hometown's chamber of commerce.
Each day of the week we had a day off from school and join these little themed 'field trips' and basically serving our town's communities. One day is was Agriculture Day, next was Arts and Humanities Day, etc, etc
One of these days, I will never forget, was Criminal Justice Day.
We went to the Police Department. We met the Chief of Police, listened to his lecture, and showed us around the offices and even the jail cells (we didn't see the prisoners in their cells because of numerous reasons of it being unsafe and violating the privacy of these inmates). After that we took a bus to the Corner's office.
Dude, this moment was such an impact and still gives me the chills till this day.
I just thought they were going to be like the usual, Lecture, THE END.
NOPE
They showed us slides of numerous amounts of cases of murders/suicides/unnatural deaths/natural deaths. ACTUAL SLIDES OF A REAL DEAD HUMAN BEINGS. Totally gut wrenching and mind scarring pictures of mutilated bodies or emotional impacting scenes of the person's scene/body presentation of death. Made me physically and emotionally sick.
That wasn't the end yet, ohhhh no
We had a tour
Long story short, we saw an actual LIVE autopsy done to an adult man in their 20s-30s. Cause of death was o******e (I don't remember from what, but my guess maybe?? C*****e or M**h, because they were showing off at how his heart was 2x bigger than a normal human heart. Correct me if I'm wrong). Chest cavity was exposed, they pulled out his tongue (I have no idea why??), and lastly saw through his skull to grab his brain. Coroners came by the window we were staring out from and showed off the man's brain. The smell, was horrendous... Still can remember the smell.
I think about that day EVERY SINGLE DAY after that, and how wrong it was.
Imagine being the parent of that man.. I know that he's gone, but that was once a human being and we were all there staring at his mutilated body that was once his.
Queen Boudicca 7 months ago
I realize this was very traumatic for kids and it should never be treated as a joke - but ME's do God's work in getting answers for families and ensuring the guilty get prosecuted.
G A 7 months ago
Be interesting to know the age of the kids when this happened. If underage, surely it's inadvisable at the least?
Debby Keir 7 months ago
What's 'underage' in these circumstances? Learning that d**g abuse k*lls is a hard but necessary lesson, and probably why that particular post mortem was shown. Better at, say, 14 than later when already dabbling.
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Leg less In Minneapolis 7 months ago
When you think about it, showing teenagers an overd0se post mortem is a big deterrent to d**g use.
Catherine Spencer-Mills 7 months ago
I got really nasty videos in high school. Automobile accidents before safety glass was a thing. (This was the 60s.) Needle tracks on arms. Actual d**g overdoses recorded on camera. An actual autopsy was not on the agenda. Thank goodness.
Catherine Spencer-Mills 7 months ago
I still get queasy over having blood drawn for doctor ordered tests.
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Ahnjunwan 7 months ago
Why would you want to watch that? Were you not the person who called me sick in another post for making a joke about a dead cat? It is not done to give people like you a kick, deceased people have to be treated with respect and not as a public viewing for misguided people who think it makes them interesting because they like to watch that. And btw, you get used to the smell pretty quick, it is the brutality how a body is opened. Do you know what it sounds like when a ribcage is opened? You do not want to know.....
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#43
Nobody will care about this one and I can't blame them, but when else will I get to share this story?
I was living in northern BC, Canada, and a friend of my then-boss was found dead beside a lake with no obvious cause, so an autopsy was performed.
He was, if memory serves, about seventy years old and in excellent physical condition. He had gone out on the lake in his boat and capsized, and swam back to shore. But when he got there he must have decided to rest, and fell asleep with his feet in the water. He died of hypothermia.
I think of this a lot when I consider survival situations. Everyone, if you're in trouble, don't give up too soon. Don't quit, don't stop to rest until you're sure it's safe to do so.
W. 5 7 months ago
I loved to do cold water swimming after running for two hours (half-marathon training).I was staying in rural Sweden with a cold, deep lake nearby, great holidays. It felt so refreshing and made my muscles don't feel sour the next day, so I could run the next day, too. After a few days I was in the water again after a run, seimming my usual 90 minutes- and then became suddenly so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open and just wanted to sleep. The water felt warm like a bathtub suddenly. I was on my way back and very close to land but it took all my willpower to make this last few strokes, felt like an eternity while being almost in a dream state. Everything was so nice and calm and warm and my husband who was waiting for me saw me struggling and pulled me out. Said I was icecold and blue, got me into the hot shower to get my temperature up, then into the bed with hit bottles. I don't remember anything clearly but I stopped my extreme training..
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Day Andie 7 months ago
The problem with hypothermia is that it's so insidious--it will creep up on you, compounding errors in making decisions. Underestimating time of exposure, the desire to sleep, and taking off clothing because of temperature disregulation are several things that are pretty common with hypothermia. The best way to survive it is to be prepared for it before you actually get cold. If you're in a survival situation, it's because you weren't prepared. And yes, you can't always prepare for a broken leg or an unexpected extreme weather condition (emphasis on unexpected--don't go out in iffy weather) but the preparation for those kinds of accidents is that you tell someone where you're going and provide for backup if you don't show up when you say you will.
Deep One 7 months ago
I ended up with something called silent hypothermia. I had never heard of it. I had gone on six scuba dives in one day. As a Mainer diving in Florida in water that was in the 70's I didn't bother with a wet suit. After the last dive I was having a hard time getting back in the boat. The dive master asked me how many dives I had been on (3 deep water dives and 3 shallow dives) and he told me I had hypothermia. I told him I didn't feel cold just very tired. He said I had silent hypothermia, where I had slowly lowered my core temp over the course of the day. It was also when I learned that hypothermia can mess with your head, as I was having trouble speaking.
Load More Replies... Theora Fifty-five Johnson 7 months ago
This applies broadly " if you're in trouble, don't give up too soon. Don't quit, don't stop to rest until you're sure it's safe to do so."
#44
I was a forensic tech for a state medical examiner's office for about 2 years. I've assisted in about 1000 autopsies and have removed bodies from scenes from likely twice that. I told these stories in another AskReddit thread about people who clean up crime scenes, and I have a few takeaways:
1. Man who had a psychotic break and castrated himself and stuffed it all into this mouth before cutting his own throat.
2. Man who was sodomized to death with a broom, a baseball bat, and the tuning end of a guitar.
3. Man who decapitated himself by hanging himself with high tension cable and jumping off a bridge.
4. Woman overdosing whilst carrying an 8-month pregnancy.
No really any major revelations like, in terms of something wild unexpected or a medical finding that contradicts the police report. Just seen enough s**t in one lifetime for 100 people.
That_One_Harry_Potter_Nerd 7 months ago
I have massive respect for people who do these jobs
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#45
Six months after my aunt’s passing in a drunk driving incident, the coroner decided to ring up my mum and inform her that they completed their report on her passing, and deemed the likelihood of “s******l intentions” which may have factored into said incident; I initially didn’t understand how coroners could deduce such a thing.
Until i remembered, self harm scars are a thing.
My mum had only just gotten to the acceptance stage of grief, and it put her firmly back to square one.
She’s fine now.
G A 7 months ago
You don't go through 7 stages of grief in a row. That's a myth from a misunderstanding of the book.
Kelly H. Wilder 7 months ago
Healing from trauma in not a linear progression; it's much more cyclical or spiral.
Load More Replies... Bored Trash Panda 7 months ago
Just because someone has self harm scars, doesn't always mean they want to off themselves. I know at least for me.
#46
Not a doctor, but a whole body scientific donation technician. I'm the person who dissects cadavers after they were donated.
We very commonly would get young cases, normally overdoses. Had a mid-thirties female, went to medical examiner prior to donation, but they only did an external evaluation.
I went to check her genitals to see if I could palpate a uterus, found a c****m full of pills. Similar to most, the body became a crime scene and we couldn't touch her.
When we finally were able to continue, they asked us to photograph the pills to send to the examiners office.
They were mostly Advil and Zyrtec, easily one of the weirdest things I've ever found.
T'Mar of Vulcan 7 months ago
Zyrtec is an allergy medication/anti-histamine IIRC? I was prescribed it years back for my allergies, and only took it once because it made me basically fall asleep at my desk. "Ma'am? The children are k!ll!ng each other." "Well, ask them to do it quietly." Never took it again.
Bi.Felicia 7 months ago
Really weird that she would fill a cóndom up with Advil and allergy pills and then hide it inside herself. I wonder if they actually identified the pills before handing her over to the police, because this sounds like there may have been some corruption going on, imho.
#47
I am a pre-med student and one time while shadowing a forensic pathologist, 3 days before Christmas, he was doing an autopsy on an automobile vs pedestrian accident. The man’s face was completely smashed in. When they take samples of the brain they cut the skin, pull it over the face, and the cut off the top of the skull. when they did that the skull was basically shattered and bone fragments pulled back with the skin and when they cut off the skull cap, the brain was obviously damaged and the eyeballs had been pushed back/fallen through the orbits and into the cranial cavity.
The guy also had $10,000 in cash in his jean pockets. According to police he had a record involving d***s so the theory was either a d**g deal gone bad or he stumbled into the road while under the influence.
#48
I worked at a coroner’s office for a while and once we had a guy who we thought had died from an OD on m**h. Well we started the autopsy and i went to cut his lungs out and blueberry muffin mix started coming out of them. I stuck my finger in his mouth and it was full of blueberry muffin mix. And it was in throat. Turns out he got just high enough to pass out while eating the muffin mix and he ended up choking to death.
John Mosley 7 months ago
I stuck my finger in his mouth and...my brain instantly filled in...tasted it! NO!
Kalikima 7 months ago
Omg, my brain did the same thing! I had to read it twice..
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Wild Cream 7 months ago
Nope, food has been found in the lungs of people who have choked to death before. It’s completely possible. Sorry!
Load More Replies... #49
My grandmother had a massive stroke in her 30s that paralyzed her entire left side, and died in her 60s from a heart attack, but while doing the autopsy they found out she had bad lung cancer, but she never had any pain from it because it was in her left lung. She was a very heavy smoker, so it made sense, its just crazy that she had lung cancer and never knew.
Jenny 7 months ago
My MIL didn't know she had lung cancer until 2 weeks before she died. The previous November, she'd had a CT scan due to an ongoing cough/breathing issue, which was clear. She died May 18th the following year, with an 11cm lung tumour with metastases throughout her internal organs.
Sue Phillips 7 months ago
Hope her family found a good medical malpractice lawyer. Almost the exact same thing happened to my BIL with bladder cancer. He died 6 weeks after diagnosis, but refused chemo and other treatment, which was the only reason my sister didn't sue the doctors who missed it. By the time anyone actually paid attention, it had spread to his bones and brain. This will sound horrible, but he had diabetes, and it helped him die sooner rather than later. Never thought anyone would have any reason to be grateful for diabetes, but he deserved to have a fast and peaceful passing.
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#50
I'm a medical student, not a doctor, but when I dissected my cadaver in my first year, it had lots of surgical markings and was pretty overweight. After I'd been able to work through all the parts of the body with my group, we were able to piece together with our lab leader that our donor had been in and out of the hospital for a quadruple bypass, followed by a pacemaker, a stomach stapling, and then what looked like an emergency open-heart surgery that she died during.
Not a rare disease or strange occurrence per se, but it was interesting finding clues around the body as we learned anatomy.
#51
Not a forensic pathologist or ME, but I occasionally liaised with an office as part of local print media in the oughties. Many fascinating stories, but the one that stuck with me (no pun intended) was from an ME who discovered, while dissecting a man’s heart, that he had killed himself by first heating peanut butter to a liquid and then injecting it. It reached his heart and clogged it up, and that’s an image my brain still loves to dwell on now and then.
Debby Keir 7 months ago
I worked with d**g addicts in the early 70's. They would inject ANYTHING just for the possibility of a high. Found one in the ward kitchen trying to inject mayonnaise.
Beth Wheeler 7 months ago
I think my brain just stopped working trying to figure out why somebody would do that and it had to be horribly painful.
#52
I used to assist with wildlife necropsies for the state f&w department. Two come to mind:
-Someone shot an otherwise healthy looking deer, and brought it in because they "found something weird" when they cut it open to gut it. Sure enough, there was a cantaloupe-sized sphere of tissue in its belly. It had thick, very smooth, slightly rubbery walls. The vet was pretty sure it was an abscess, but said it was the largest walled-off one she'd over seen whole like this. Cut it open and, sure enough, the walls were about a 1/4-inch thick and then it was just all pus.
A meat cantaloupe filled with pudding-thick pus.
Also, we got a dead bat in, a little brown bat (they're tiny!) and inside it was a (dead also) fully-formed bat fetus, near term but without fur. It was almost a third of the size of the mom! Super, super cool.
G A 7 months ago
Some animals have enormous young, usually small animals in proportion to the size of its offspring. Larger animals have proportionally smaller scale offspring.
Kathrin Pukowsky 7 months ago
I heard kiwi bird eggs are almost the size of the bird laying it.
Load More Replies... #53
Not a doctor but I did a necropsy on one of my birds a couple weeks ago. I couldn't tell how she died before it happened but after opening her up I found about 14 masses of tissue in her reproductive system. At first I thought it was cancer from dissecting one of the masses. Later I found out it was actually an intestinal infection :(
Auntriarch 7 months ago
Good point, haven't seen EastEndBird for a while...
Load More Replies... #54
Not a doctor but in a dissection of an extremely emaciated cat in biology class we found a small piece of cellophane blocking the flap in the stomach that leads to the large intestines. The poor kitty had been able to eat but starved to death because her body was unable to extract nutrients from the food.
#55
This is a copy with slight edits where I answered something similar before, but I am not a doctor but I did an internship in a coroners office for a summer. My job was to help with autopsies, clean up the office, dispose of old bags of organs (bags with pieces from each organ are required to be kept for 5 years unless homicide, SIDS, or unknown cause of death), data entry, and other odds and ends. Two stories that really stick out:
On my first day I was to help with an autopsy of a homeless man who was living in a storage unit. Remind you it’s the summer, he was relieving himself in buckets that he also kept in the storage unit. He died in there and wasn’t found for a month. Anyways when we rolled him out into autopsy you could smell him through the bag it was so bad, I can’t articulate how bad it was, but I was gagging and we hadn’t even started. But then something weird happens, one of the techs puts a sheet down on the floor before we roll the cart onto it. I’m like why? We’re gonna have a disgusting stinky sheet now. That’s when the bag is opened, and I don’t see a body. I see hundreds of maggots crawling all over and they start to fall off the cart. I was then informed I had to stomp on all the maggots as they fell so they didn’t spread throughout the building. So here I am, playing the worst game of dance dance revolution in history over a half liquified skeleton holding my nose so I don’t puke.
The other story is that in the basement where we would keep all the organ bags and stuff like that we also had notable objects from old crime scenes like murder weapons etc. For some reason there were a lot of jars of fetuses but that’s a different story. Anyways, there was a b******g in a bag that had the case number written on it. Now I found this during the first week of my internship, and I kept wondering, how does someone die by a b******g? Now I had access to all case files as I had to enter data and all that Jazz. So eventually I ended up looking up the case and it turns out an older guy had it in as he was jacking off to a magazine called “The Spanking Times”. Obviously he died as his b******g was in our office, but the autopsy showed he had a heart attack presumable as he climaxed. I suppose there are worse ways to go.
Annie Kitson 3 months ago
Well, thank you we are all adults here, even so having to guess blanked out words is tedious. I hadn't figured out this one.
#56
Totally not related but somewhat related: my sister-in-law works in medicine, and one of her classes involved studying and dissecting cadavers.
One day in class they wheeled in a body and when they pulled back the sheet, a girl fainted when she realized it was her aunt.
Melancholy Kitty 7 months ago
I'm not saying this particular incident didn't happen, but I remember this Urban Legend from the 70s!
G A 7 months ago
BS. How would she not know her aunt had died? And if she was going to be examined, she would have been able to sit that out. There are procedures in place so you don't have to deal with people you knew.
JB 7 months ago
Ever heard of estrangement? I don’t think the cadavers are identified. I’m having far more trouble with “Totally not related but somewhat related”… um, yeah, can’t be both.
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araT sdrawkcaB 7 months ago
Right? I’m a female prone to hysterics who has yet to faint. Sigh.
Load More Replies... #57
A suspect had been arrested for murder, during the autopsy it was determined the decedent had been shot postmortem, several hours postmortem. The decedents cause of death was an MI. So the suspect was charged with abuse of a corpse. It makes you wonder what goes through peoples minds.
#58
Bad accident during high school missing scalp of young girl coroner couldn't find it. My buddy worked at impound yard and found it inbedded in broken windshield frame/glass. Pretty gruesome.
#59
Not me, but my friend's dad was and she use to help him, except this one time. There was a family with eight or ten kids, I can't quite remember. They decided to treat their kids to a day at an amusement park and decided to all squeeze in a van. Well, they got in a car accident. Because they were squeezed into one car they weren't wearing seatbelts. All the kids died. All their bodies were in pieces. The parents elected to identify the pieces to properly bury them. I can't imagine your decision resulting in all of your children dying and then having to identify their mangled remains. So, wear seat belts kids!!
Ahnjunwan 7 months ago
Yeah, their bodies were in pieces but the parents survived? They still had to identify the body parts? There is so much BS i do not know where to start
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#60
My dad did autopsy's as a night job while he went to college during the day. He said the hardest ones were the children. He did an autopsy on a 6 month old whose mother suffered from post-partum and she told the cops that voices were telling her to put her son in the bath tub. She ran near boiling water and held him under. He said when he got to the hospital chunks of skin were falling off and the organs were liquid on the table.
The other one he talks about are the people who are subjects of murder and they are buried. The decomposition process needs oxygen to break down cells and when they are buried it takes a lot long for them to decompose. When cops find bodies they unearth them and it takes a matter of hours for the bodies to decompose drastically. The smell of one particular individual that was m******d and buried in a corn field for 6 weeks could be smelled from 3 floors above the operating room and was so bad that it was making patients and nurses sick.
Debby Keir 7 months ago
If he went to Oxford or Cambridge, (studying medicine) he would be 'at college' rather than University. American collges are not the same as 'College' per se.
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Mary Ballard-Johansson 7 months ago
When I was working on my PhD in forensic anthropology, we would travel to various MEs for cases. At one we were looking at a case when they brought in a floater (decomposing in water). The ME advised they were about to open the body. We (pathologists, assistants, cops, us) scattered like cockroaches when the light comes on. That is one smell that is rarely forgotten!
#61
So I'm not an autopsy doctor or anything of the sort. I did sit in on a murder trial, the mom drowned her infant in hot water. She claimed she was giving her newborn a bath in the sink with one of those sling type inserts so babies can't go under, the doorbell rang, she answered and came back to her kid in scalding hot water. She claimed the kid had somehow turned on the hot water and burned himself while she was answering the door, but drowning was the ultimate rule of death. In the autopsy photos, the most disturbing thing I've ever seen in real life, is you could clearly make out hand marks on that poor child's skin, on his biceps. You could see the finger outlines like you do if someone slaps you. I was 18 years old taking a criminal justice class. Just the ease of watching the trail and her nonchalance killed most faith I had in humanity at the time. I know this doesn't quite fit the question but for years I saw that boys face in my sleep. What really kills me is despite the evidence she got off.
G A 7 months ago
Why would anyone "sitting in" see the photos being shown to the jury? This also sounds unlikely.
araT sdrawkcaB 7 months ago
It’s possible. I had to see some gruesome photos during a trial and it was for my journalism class.
Load More Replies... #62
Disclaimer: not a pathologist.
In anatomy lab in medical school, we found one of the cadavers had a p***s pump! There's a pump you squeeze in the s*****m that pushes water (stored up in a (hard plastic) water balloon in the abdominal cavity) into a tube in the p***s.
Other story I've told before, but I was dissecting the back of a knee when the knee implant (that I didn't know was there) popped out. For a brief, stupid moment I thought it was a Terminator and screeched.
Mel in Georgia 7 months ago
My mom told (adult) me my dad had one since he lost function due to bladder cancer surgery. Thanks for the TMI, Mom!
#63
When I was young I knew a 19 year old guy that was found dead in his apartment. The landlord was convinced it was an OD. Family asked for an autopsy. It was TYPE 1 DIABETES! He was undiagnosed. Probably felt like hell and went into shock and died. Very sad case if he had gotten medical care in time, he probably would have lived. And then the police sent the bill for the autopsy to the family to add insult to injury. That was back in 1990.
G A 7 months ago
Why would the family pay when it would have been ordered by the authorities? Doesn't sound likely.
JB 7 months ago
Re-read slowly. Especially the sentence, “Family asked for an autopsy.”
Load More Replies... #64
I’m a med student, not a pathologist or coroner. But in anatomy lab the tank next to me had a donor with an inflatable p***s pump inside his s*****m and shaft. It was completely self contained. Fluid in the container in the s*****m could be pumped into the shaft tube creating an erection. Then the fluid would just be released back into the pump and the b***r would go away.
Pretty wild.
Beth Wheeler 7 months ago
I worked in a Urology Clinic for 6 years and while I was learning the ins and outs of each providers schedules. The person training me took me in the back and shown the different sizes of the IPP's, I said OH MY GOD, put my hands on my face and turned every shade of red known to man.
#65
I was in charge of making copies of all evidence to be used in the trial of Donald Harvey in 1989. He was known as The Angel of Death. One bit of evidence was an autopsy photo of an exhumed elderly woman. The examiner was holding with tweezers an 18” piece of cotton being pulled from her throat. Harvey liked to stuff cotton so far down into the victim’s throats that it could not be seen. I still can’t shake the image from my brain.
#66
Newly-graduated doctor here. Maybe not a medical revelation per se but a revelation to me when I was a student watching my first autopsies.
Female, late 50s, very obese. Typical case, you might say. She died at home alone.
Incision through very thick layers of fat. Then - every inch of her viscera was covered in fat. Slick, slippery, yellow. The sound is obscene. Her sternum and ribs are snapped open to review the chest. The medical examiner tells us the correct way to remove the organs is such that everything can be dangled from the tongue. My colleague leaves the room.
Her heart weighed triple than that of the normal 70-something man lying next to her. What is supposed to be red muscle is just sickly yellow fat. When you touched it, the coronary arteries were rock hard.
The lungs are next. Heavy, again. Sliced into pieces by knife, and liquid starts oozing out of it. Squeeze it - air bubbles and more liquid oozes out from tiny alveoli spaces. Classic heart failure, pulmonary oedema. Explains the swollen ankles. Some pus comes out too - maybe she had a pneumonia.
Liver isn’t much better - although at this point you’d be more surprised if she didn’t have fatty liver disease. Kidneys scarred from years of hypertension.
Getting the brain out is the hardest to watch. A cut is made in the occipital scalp and the top of the head “flipped” onto the face. Saw opens the skull. Brain gets weighed like the rest - what it holds in her final moments we’ll never know. It gets set aside with the other organs.
When done, all the viscera is put into a plastic bag. This is put back into her open abdomen, now empty. They sew it all back up with thick sutures you wouldn’t use in the living. The scalp is put back together. The skin is cleaned.
The doctor leaves us with this gem as she hung up her gown. “If only you could diagnose people like this in hospital and in surgery, your job would be much easier.”
For those interested in what an obese body looks like, here is an excellent documentary from the BBC (NSFW warning - not for the faint hearted): https://youtu.be/ZagG-rXrgPA
Please take care of your body and stay healthy.
Mel in Georgia 7 months ago
My brother showed me his cadaver in medical school. It was also a morbidly obese woman. The fat hardens much like the fat you see on steaks. Thick bands of it. It was disturbing.
setsuriseikou 7 months ago
So my ob/gyn telling me to get a (super painful) mammogram because I turned 40 is ageism? No, it's common sense, since our breast tissue changes with age, and after around 40 not everything can be seen in an ultrasound. Saying "you fat pig" is fat shaming. Saying "being very obese negatively impacted this lady's health in this, this and this clearly visible way" is not. Not a single word implies shaming in the whole post.
Load More Replies... #67
There was this girl my mum grew up with on an army base. She had a really long plait she used to chew on in her sleep, and she choked to death on a hairball once. Apparently it was the size of a kiwi fruit lodged in her throat.
Arenwy 7 months ago
Actually, if you read carefully, it’s a description of what it’s like to autopsy a fat person, and the doctors comment on the end. It is not fat shaming. They are making no judgement whatsoever. A description is not fat shaming. You’re the one judging, as you have several times in previous posts. If the person was describing an autopsy of a thin person, is that thin shaming?
Load More Replies... #68
Late to the party but, in university I applied and got into the Prosection lab. Basically, we got the fresh pickled cadaver and dissected it for the anatomy lab. We weren’t told anything about his medical history or cause of death.
List of things we found:
-metal fragments in his quad and calf
-sternum was wired together (old surgery)
-blood jelly in the brain
-old school stent above the heart
There were other weird things. Mostly though I still struggle with the smell of pepperoni because it’s so similar to embalmed corpse. Found that out after prosecting for a few hours and then going to the Cafeteria for pepperoni pizza- and then vomiting said pepperoni pizza.
#69
Reading all this makes me paranoid that I have something wrong with my organs that I’m not aware of.
setsuriseikou 7 months ago
Oh yeah? So no people who died of, say, cancer knew they had it?
Load More Replies... #70
I’m not a pathologist but I work in a field.....adjacent to it. One patient was heart attack caused by c*****e use. The heart was apparently giant. Like having to use c*****e just to keep the heart going.
My dad used to be a pathologist assistant and had to quit after a teenage s*****e around the age of my brother then a couple or three SIDS cases which is sudden infant death syndrome in the same week.
#71
Not me but my biology teacher said at uni they had a cadaver which died from drunk driving and when they opened his skull it smelled of the alcohol.
G A 7 months ago
How, exactly? Another BS one. Since when does what you imbibe go into your SKULL?
Load More Replies...
#72
I'm not a doctor but my dad was a police officer and once a riporter came to the "lab" and my father was escorting her, she watched a full autopsy, but when my father started eating his sandwich it gave a loud crack and poor lady thought that the body made the sound and threw up in the middle of the autopsy.
Wild Cream 7 months ago
Because it’s impossible for a sandwich to have crunchy elements and to have someone mistake the sound of biting into a sandwich for something else, right?
Load More Replies... #73
Nine creme eggs.
#74
Not an autopsy doctor but a story I heard from my local sheriff. The local department found a guy that killed himself by shooting himself while on a fire that burned up his body pretty bad. The autopsy doctor found out that he was full of bullets and was hoping for bullets to go off as his body burnt away.
#75
My highschool biology teacher had originally trained as some sort of medical professional in India. He used to tell a story about doing a dissection prac. Apparently the college started the process with some kind of ceremony where the students paid respect to the body they were going to dissect by placing a small offering of some sort with each cadaver.
In his class, one of the lab techs decided to mess with the students and after making up just enough offerings for the number of cadarvers, then set up an extra table in the fast end of the room and laid himself out on it. The students came in, placed the offerings, missing the far table with the lab tech. As they were leaving, the tech suddenly sat up and demanded, "where's my offering?".
#76
Apparently there are some hidden notes on the autopsy of a well known politician who was assassinated in Dallas. In the middle of the autopsy they found some "beads" in his large colon which was expected. The unexpected part was that they spelled out in Morse code >!This is why you use the serious tag!
What do you think ?
Cathy Jo Baker 7 months ago
Dear BP: we're adults here, most of us have been around the block a time or two, and we have seen stuff. It's not going to damage us to see the words O******E, C*****E, M**H, D***S, S*****E, R**E... we can handle it, trust us a little.
Betsy S 7 months ago
I agree. I don't know why they don't just grow the hell up and use the words that are legitimate words. We are not in kindergarten! Why does BP behave as though THEY are?
Load More Replies... jasper 7 months ago
My brother runs the cadaver lab at a local college. He has interesting stories sometimes.
Vincent-Oliviér Desmet-Demeyer 7 months ago
Dear BP: instead of censoring half the dictionary, please just censor the ones about animals dying. One of those little ‘click to reveal’ things. Thát is what traumatizes me, not the word mœrder.
Wild Cream 7 months ago
You literally think everything is fake, not sure why you’re even here
Load More Replies... Cathy Jo Baker 7 months ago
Dear BP: we're adults here, most of us have been around the block a time or two, and we have seen stuff. It's not going to damage us to see the words O******E, C*****E, M**H, D***S, S*****E, R**E... we can handle it, trust us a little.
Betsy S 7 months ago
I agree. I don't know why they don't just grow the hell up and use the words that are legitimate words. We are not in kindergarten! Why does BP behave as though THEY are?
Load More Replies... jasper 7 months ago
My brother runs the cadaver lab at a local college. He has interesting stories sometimes.
Vincent-Oliviér Desmet-Demeyer 7 months ago
Dear BP: instead of censoring half the dictionary, please just censor the ones about animals dying. One of those little ‘click to reveal’ things. Thát is what traumatizes me, not the word mœrder.
Wild Cream 7 months ago
You literally think everything is fake, not sure why you’re even here
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