Underwater caves would be pretty high up on my list, if not right up at the very top of it!

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 :).

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.