Working around or alongside dead bodies is not a job everyone can handle.
Indeed, it takes a strong stomach, massive discipline, not to mention bravery.
Of course, most people who are brave enough to work as a doctor, nurse, coroner, or a mortician usually also have a high level of compassion as well, honoring the life of the person they are working for.
Particularly if they are superstitious, and wonder if that very person might still be in the same room with them, just out of their bodies.
An idea easy enough to laugh off, but indeed, many of these people have first hand experiences of haunting, sometimes scary encounters of finding themselves in the presence of spirits.
"Redditors who have worked around death/burial, what’s your best ghost story?
Some Unfinished Business, Maybe?
"I used to be a security guard at a hospital."
"One night, while doing my rounds, I went into the surgery wing and was walking down a hallway when I saw a doctor looking at the whiteboard where all the scheduled surgeries are written down."
"I said 'hello doctor' and kept going."
"The doctor didn’t say anything back, just kept studying the whiteboard."
"When I got back to the security office, I was telling one of the guys that’s been there for years about how I greeted this doctor and he didn’t say anything back, I asked if thats the a**hole they told me to watch out for."
"I was asked where I saw him and I said the surgery ward, and he gave me a smirk."
"He then explained that the surgery ward closes at 9pm and that all patients are moved into the monitoring wards; there should be no one there."
"He then asked me if this doctor was studying the schedule board."
"I said yes and he then told me that I just met Dr. Luisitti."- addictedpunk
A Sign Of Comfort, Or Foreboding?
"I worked within hospice and long-term care."
"The spookiest phenomenon was the man in the corner."
"It happens all the time for people actively dying."
"They see a shadowy man in the corner of their room."- LeftandLeaving9006
Poor Guy. Both Of Them.
"Not me, but a colleague found a dead person in a dark smoke filled burned out building during the mop up of fire fighting operations."
"As unfortunately happens sometimes, you find them by stepping on them."
"If they're still intact you kinda bounce off them."
"If they're fried, you can often crunch them up pretty bad under your heavy boot."
"Well this guy stood right on a badly burned corpse's sternum."
"Crunch, right into the chest cavity."
"When he tried to pull his foot out it got stuck on the ribs and the body came up at him."
"Burned up arms flailing about."
"He needed quite a bit of counseling, poor dude."- demoneyesturbo
All In A Day
"I have several stories from when I worked as a Mortuary Transport Tech."
"The job was basically transporting the deceased from where they were to where they needed to go."
"Turns out dead people can have a lot of appointments."
"One time though I had an experience I’ve never forgotten."
"I was dropping someone off at the Science Donation place."
"This is when you donate your body to science and they take it from there."
"So I wheeled in the deceased, unlocked the freezer, and did all my stuff I had to do in there."
"I placed him on the board, got the lift out, and placed him on the shelf."
"The interesting thing about the freezer was that most everything, once it’s processed, was wrapped in this blue tape type thing."
"And you could definitely tell what was inside."
"Legs, hands, feet, etc."
"Kind of interesting to me at the time."
"Anyway, I shut the freezer and locked it back up, and started wheeling the gurney back over to the garage door."
"The science drop off and processing area was a big L shape, with the freezer off to the larger long portion, and then you turn the corner and there’s desks and filing cabinets and whatnot."
"I about had a heart attack as I turned the corner and there is just this guy standing there examining files in the file cabinet."
"Looked just like you or me."
"Dressed modernly, but out of place for what people normally wear back there."
"I stopped and said that he’d have to forgive me but he almost gave me a heart attack."
"It didn’t look like he heard me at all, or even knew I was there."
"I should mention this was also about 1am, and I’d never seen anyone at the place this late."
"So I said, 'well, sorry if I startled you or anything', and went on about my finishing up stuff."
"Got the gurney back in the van, closed and locked the large garage door from the inside, all the while this guy is just standing there, staring at an open file in front of him, not paying any attention to me."
"I had to use the bathroom so I told him that’s where I’d be going and I’d be right back."
"Again, no response."
'I thought maybe he’s deaf and couldn’t hear me."
"So I went to the bathroom, and came back to the garage and the guy is gone but the file cabinet is still open."
"I didn’t know where he went, and I hadn’t heard anyone walk down the hallway past the bathroom."
"I checked and made sure everything I was responsible for was still locked, and it was."
"So I just announced that I was going to be leaving and locking up to set the alarm."
"No response."
"And that’s what I did, and left."
"I’m not sure who he was, or is, or what happened."
"But it was definitely an odd experience and one I still remember perfectly."
"I have a few other memories about my time at the job, if anyone else wants to hear."
"Nothing like what happened above though."- OlliverClozzoff
Unsettling Doppleganger
"I was once working at a mortuary and had to go pick up a man from the medical examiner’s office."
"When you do that (at least where I’m from) you get a receipt when they release the body to you."
"The receipt has all of the personal belongings that are with the deceased."
"When I brought the man back to the office I opened up the body bag to make sure all the belongings were there and double checking the receipt."
"When I opened up the bag I was stunned to find this dude looked almost exactly like me."
"He was my age, had similar tattoos In similar spots, had the same long hair I do, even had the same style of jewelry I was wearing."
"It took me so off guard that I stood there in an existential crisis until the embalmer came in and was like 'hey SpartanM00 how’s it goin—ahhh holy sh*t that guy looks like you!'"
"It’s the only case I’ve had nightmares about."
"I’ll be the one in the body bag with the deceased man opening me up."- SpartanM00
The More You Know
"Corpses move when you cremate em."
"People who don't know this get spooked a lot."- rocharox
The Unseen Help
"During my apprenticeship, I worked at a funeral home said to be 'haunted' by an old funeral director assistant who had a heart attack in the building and died."
"All he ever did was mess with the chapel lights and if you called him out, something like 'John the family is coming, please don't' they would return to normal."
"Not really sure if I believe it was really haunted, but saying something always fixed the issue so I kept doing it my entire time there."- _bobbykelso
Nightmare Inducing
"I used to work in a nursing home."
"The residents in certain rooms would complain about a man in their room at night but hallucinations are common in the elderly so it wasn't really noticed."
"One night I was moping the dinning room which had huge windows over looking the garden, it was around 1am so pitch black outside and low lighting inside."
"I had this horrible feeling of being watched so looked up and reflected in the window was a man behind me."
"He had a brown suit in, a bowler hat and the cruelest look on his face, he grinned and his mouth was too big."
"This happened in seconds and when I turned around there was obviously no one there but I'll never forget that look of evil on his face."
"I paid more attention to the residents after that and they'd all seen the same man, he just enjoyed terrorizing people."- mycatiscalledFrodo
Holding Out Hope
"I used to be a driver for a funeral home corporation."
"Like, drive the hearse and pick up the bodies."
"Never had anything creepy happened, a few funny things, a few traumatic things."
"In general it was a chill job."
"However, I did get incredibly uncomfortable one night picking up a man who died at home."
"He still had the defibrillator leads on his chest and his eyes were closed, which is unusual because the eyes are always open."
"He just looked like he was asleep or unconscious."
"Not rigid or pale or anything."
"I just had this sinking feeling for about half an hour in traffic that he was going to suddenly gasp and wake up in the body bag."
"Then it hit me."
"That would be the coolest thing ever."
"I’d take him home and he’d be back with his family."
"So I just kind of drove slowly and turned up some music and sang along and talked to him."
"When I got him to the funeral home I left him out of the cooler for about an hour while I did paperwork and played on my phone."
"When I got another call I checked on him and his limbs had started to stiffen."
"I was kind of bummed."
"I put him in the cooler and went on my next call."- Chemistry-Least
Working alongside the dead is a challenging. poignant, and frequently scary occupation.
As you always have the feeling that someone is watching you.
And more often than not, you may be right.
Funeral Home Employees Divulge The Weirdest Requests They've Ever Gotten
Death is scary. It brings the unknown of the great beyond, whether that's heaven, some other afterlife, or total nothingness, depending on what you believe.
But there is one perk that comes with death: total control of your funeral.
Think about it. You have a captive audience for the whole day. They're all going to be so intentional about respecting your memory that it would really take something huge to upset them.
That, my friends, is a time to push the envelope and take some liberties with that ceremony.
Many Redditors who work in the funeral industry have firsthand experience witnessing recently deceased people exercising that power through wills, parting words, and even pre-death meetings.
Some people have gotten quite creative.
hurtfocker asked, "Funeral home workers and owners: what's the weirdest request you've gotten regarding a deceased person?"
A good amount of people treat their funerals college parties.
They go with a theme they imagine everyone will enjoy, try to inject some sarcastic humor into the planning, and see how it all plays out
Let the Games BeginÂ
"I got a request for the deceased to be dressed up in a Where's Waldo costume and to have 12 other identical caskets in the room so the guests could try to guess where he was by opening coffins randomly."
"Each guest was to play this guessing game and then sit down before the next person could enter so everyone could play the game."
"Problem was not everyone wanted to play the game.....super odd but they paid a lot for it."
-- ramontgomery
Dead In a Faraway GalaxyÂ
"The deceased was a huge Star Wars fan and left explicit instructions for his funeral."
"As funeral organist, I was requested to play Star Wars principal themes on the grand pipe organ for prelude music, processional and recessional."
"As I once described, pall bearers were dressed in main characters costumes and "Obi-Wan Kenobi" gave an inspired eulogy, drawing upon memorable moments from the series."
"Using 'full organ' (all the stops out) for climatic moments, I played the Imperial March at the conclusion of the funeral before those in attendance departed for the cemetery for the committal."
-- Back2Bach
A True Celebration of the Life He LivedÂ
"I'm a florist, and I've created some unique tributes out of fresh flowers, and more."
"I made a putting green two feet across, complete with ball, tee and a club for an avid golfer. I constructed a fish out of various blooms and leaves, placed by a lakeside foliage spray. I've made rainbows and black and white themed arrangements. I put a lot of heart into memorial pieces."
"A few years ago, I was helping a family decide on their tributes for a much-loved man. The wife stressed he was known for his big blue Giant Eagle truck, and most of their friends were from the driver's union."
"I volunteered myself for a watercolor picture of the truck around which I would design a floral spray. It took four attempts, but I was finally happy, and framed it."
"Two days later, I received the most wonderful letter from his wife, and said that everyone agreed it was the most appropriate and important statement about his life. It will sit on her mantle for the rest of her life."
-- cavepainted
Friends Til the Very EndÂ
"My family owns a grave digging business as well as lawn and garden statues, someone purchased an 8ft tall gorilla statue."
"My dad delivered it and asked what they were going to do with it and where they were putting it, the guys said their friends dying wish was to be stuffed up this concrete gorillas a**, and that's what they did."
"They drilled a whole in the a** and put their buddies ashes inside"
-- hayhay428
There also appears to be a strange obsession with eye sockets and eyeballs. Many funeral workers have fielded requests involving what exactly to do with eyes.
All of them are completely unnerving, of course.
Always WatchingÂ
"My husband found out they can make gems out of cremains, and now he wants to be reduced to 2 jewels seated in his own eye sockets."
"I don't want a skull! I don't want to own his skull! I don't want him to watch me with his evil gem eyes!"
-- ParadiseSold
For ScienceÂ
"My own will requests that my right eye be removed, preserved and delivered to my oncologist in Miami for him to do with whatever he sees fit."
"Hopefully as a teaching aid to new optometry students, but if he wants to use it for pranks I'm totally fine with that too."
"I survived a very unusual eye cancer and they had to do all kinds of experimental things to repair it when all was done. I jokingly suggested I donate it to science when I went and he said that was an amazing idea. So, here you go."
"I hope whoever deals with my corpse has fun with that request."
-- zerbey
One Last LookÂ
"My wife's uncle asked the funeral director when he dies he would like his eyes open in the casket during his viewing."
"His entire life everyone commented on his big baby blue eyes and he wanted them open for people to see one last time."
And finally, sometimes it's not all wine and roses when the close of life comes along.
People live complicated lives full of strained dynamics with family and friends. And often, that comes to a head right at the final moment.
One Last F-You
"One rich guy hated his kids and didn't want them to get a cent of his wealth. He therefore wanted all his money to spent on a mausoleum for his coffin with a rose garden around it and the eternal upkeep thereof."
"He had the city council-approved architectural plans for the mausoleum included in his will and testament."
"He demanded in his will that the remaining funds, after construction, must go to a gardening service to maintain the rose garden and clean off the bird poop from his mausoleum in perpetuity until the money runs out in a few centuries."
"The mausoleum is in Cemetery de Saint Rambert outside Lyon, France."
Utter IndifferenceÂ
"My coworker was meeting a client who was picking up his mother's cremains. My coworker has the client sign a release, then hands him the urn."
The man immediately turns around and drops the urn into the trash can."
"My coworker is a 40 year funeral director veteran, and without missing a beat, he says, 'Sir, I can understand your strong feelings about your mother, but I cannot allow you to leave that here. What you do once you get out the door is up to you and God.' "
"Dude picked up the urn and left without a word."
-- keliez
To Reflect What She Was Like, Or Never Did?
"My mom asked the embalmer to put a few stitches in my grandma's cheeks to give her a faint smile.
"At the time it seemed like an odd, even slightly morbid request, but 20+ years on, it's one of the only things I remember from her funeral. It was kind of lovely, actually."
-- Fearless_Lab
Photo Op
"Not a mortician, but an EMT."
"I had a family ask to take pictures of their deceased adult child immediately after we stopped resuscitation efforts. There's tubes sticking out of the individual, discoloration, lifeless skin, hastily cut clothes, medical equipment strewn about, all of this uncomfortably taking place in a narrow corner in a crudely built and overfilled add on to a run down house... it was not a peaceful scene."
"The lead medic allowed it, but I almost intervened... I just couldn't think of a soft way to say 'you don't want to remember your child like this' at the time."
"I really hope the family found peace and deleted those photos. I ran into them a few times after that (unrelated to EMS), and they seemed okay... but holy hell. I understand that seeing the body of a dead loved one often brings closure after a traumatic event like that... but don't immortalize that image as the last picture of that person."
"From experience, those images are haunting. I have the last image of a friend of mine that died in a freak explosion (I did the crime scene photos), and I often have to look at good photos of him to put the bad ones to rest."
"They're not images you want to see when you think of someone fondly."
- ckjm
Comics And Nutella
"I worked 2 years as a casket bearer when I was a student because it paid very well."
"One time the undertaker came to us, telling that he's sorry for the extra weight, but the guy who died really wanted some comics books and a 5 kg jar of Nutella with him."
"For Germany, that's some next level extravaganza."
- bremishpotato
Practice Makes Perfect
"My parents owned a small business next door to a funeral home so we knew the guys who worked there pretty well."
"When my grandma was diagnosed as terminal she wanted to plan her own funeral so one of them came round to our house to make the arrangements with her. He was a really young guy barely out of school, the son of the main funeral director, and was still an apprentice who had never done a funeral by himself."
"When he asked my grandma whether she wanted his dad or his uncle to do the funeral, she told him she wanted him to do it."
"He started to refuse saying he didn’t have the experience yet, he might not do it well, he wasn’t at that point in his training yet and he was just here doing the admin etc."
"She insisted on him doing it because 'you need the experience eventually, might as well do your first one for someone who doesn’t care if you mess it up.' He did it, and he was great."
"Myself and my siblings and cousins were all a similar age to the guy at the time and doing our first jobs/apprenticeships etc and she’d seen us struggling with wanting more experience in our fields but not always getting the opportunities to do so; so that’s why she insisted."
"He did my granddads funeral two years later too."
- InterestingCloud9
The Tattoo
"My fiance works in a funeral home so I'm stealing his story. They had someone call and ask if they could remove a decedent's tattoo so he could have it preserved which is apparently a real service that one place offers."
"The director who took the phone call went to the manager with it and they were hemming and hawing because none of them wanted to do it. I guess it's something that is probably fine for them to do legally but is also borderline abuse of a corpse if someone in law enforcement wanted to be a dick about it, and also they all found it kind of personally repulsive."
"Finally the manager goes, 'Wait, which guy? Isn't that the guy they pulled out of the river? The one who was in there a while?' "
" '...well, I guess that's one time skin slippage would be a good thing.' (Do not google skin slippage if you are squeamish.) "
"Anyway, because of all the water damage the body was 'not viewable' and the tattoo was definitely not in any condition to be removed and preserved so they were able to tell the requester no for that reason rather than, 'It's weird and we don't wanna do it.' "
- scarrlet
Balloon Giveaway
"Not a funeral home employee or owner, just the daughter of a person who didn't want their funeral to be a sad affair."
"My mom passed quickly from cancer in 2019 but she had her entire funeral planned out and paid for. Turns out she told the funeral home she wanted 100 balloons surrounding her coffin and for the balloons to be given out to those who came to mourn with us."
"She wanted to bring a happy moment in the midst of sadness."
- smartnclumsy
Legalities
"My friend is a funeral worker and was directing a funeral for this woman. Her daughter arranged the funeral, paid for everything, did everything funeral related and paid for a full service to get her mother buried."
"There was a small issue right before the funeral and one of the workers at the mortuary needed to contact the daughter but she didn't pick up at the time and so they contacted her father who was listed as a contact."
"What the mortuary workers were unaware of was that the deceased woman and this man had been separated for decades but no one in the family, including the deceased woman, knew that they were still legally married. That legally makes him the next of kin that is responsible for arranging the funeral."
"He was upset that no one had told him and he ordered the mortuary not to bury her body or have the open casket (which was already paid for and her body already prepared). Everyone was already at the funeral (including the woman's own parents) when all of a sudden this man who hadn't been in any of their lives for decades cancelled everything."
"He demanded that her body be cremated. His own daughter was begging and crying for him not to do this, but legally, he had all the power to do this."
"The mortuary did everything they could but in the end, he had the legal power to do everything he did. The woman ended up getting cremated and the man gained possession of her ashes and went back into obscurity."
"My friend said that the mortuary worker who called the father felt so SO guilty, but she did what she was trained to do and somehow the daughter didn't hold it against the mortuary for goofing up like this."
"My friend says the biggest takeaway from this is to always name your power of attorney long before you even expect to die, especially after a big life event or when separating from your spouse or a household you no longer want to be part of."
"Last I heard, the man lost legal powers over the deceased woman after that. But what happened already happened and there was nothing else that could be done after that."
"The daughter and woman's family ended up just having to eat the cost of the funeral service that never happened. Truly traumatic."
- Kuneria
Memories On Loop
"Not really a strange request but definitely one that has stayed with me."
"I once helped conduct a service for a gentlemen who passed away of old age, he and his daughter were very close. I guess he had dementia before he had passed, and his daughter was taking care of him full time at home giving him hospice care."
"He apparently loved the song Memories by Adam Levine, as it came out before his diagnosis. His daughter made it a tradition to play it to him every night, because it was something he enjoyed listening to even if he didn't remember why."
"So she asked us to play this song on loop for the entire graveside service. Now that's all I remember when I hear that song."
- musicko1
However old you are, now is the time to start planning the big sendoff. Look no further for some ideas to start off the brainstorm session.
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People Who Have Actually Taken A Life Disclose How It Really Affected Them
Life is fragile. That's a realization that hits all of us at different points. One moment, you're here, the next, you're gone.
Unfortunately sometimes the loss of life is caused by human error. And for the people who are on the other side of that life, the people who caused the death--it can be one of the most trying and difficult experiences of their own lives. We don't often get to hear those stories.
u/AlwaysTheNoob asked:
Here were some of those dark answers.
Ghosts Of The Past
A 12-year-old boy rode his bike in front of my car and died. It messed me up for a long time. I definitely had PTSD. I did a lot of drugs to compensate. I didn't invest in having a good future because I didn't feel like I deserved one. I still don't but now I have a family and they deserve a good future so I make an effort. When my kid got to 12 I thought about it a lot. She's 14 now. I know the accident wasn't my fault but it still feels like it was. I already had some depression before that happened and after it's been a regular battle. There are days where just getting out of bed is a major victory. Over time the guilt and depression have lessened and I have tools to deal with them but it's still something that haunts me.
Professional Help Is Essential
I homeless man jumped out from some parked cars and I hit him. It was raining and at night, and the blood mixed with the water made it looks like a literal blood bath. I could smell the mix of booze and blood in the air.
I had a hard time the first couple of days, then thought I was good. Went back to work but had 0 motivation, 0 energy, 0 emotions, I was just a shell of a person. I had a mental breakdown at the office, they had to call my parents, I was almost 30.
I began doing extreme things to get emotions back. Sabotaging my job, vandalizing property at night, things like that. Anything to get some feelings back.
I knew it wasn't my fault, that the dude was drunk and jumped out in front of the car and I couldn't have really done anything different, but as others have said, if I hadn't been there, this wouldn't have happened. It's a weird process to go through.
I should have gone to therapy much, much sooner. Eventually, after a couple of years it kind of just went to the back of my head, forgotten, but whenever some other crisis happened in my life, it would be compounded by this. I lost a good job, some friends, eventually, compounded with other problems I didn't deal with, I lost my wife.
I finally decided to get help, and while I know there's a lot of work to still be done, I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere with dealing with this, and other issues. Nobody wants to be on the hook for taking someone else's life, but if it does happen, make sure you seek professional help. Don't let one life being taken away cause your own life to be taken too.
A Shortened Range
Was driving to the mall one evening, a car made a left turn crossing my lanes, causing me to t-bone them. Teenage boy in their passenger seat and my girlfriend in my passenger seat both passed away. This was almost 20 years ago, I've since married and I have 2 sons, and mostly, I'm just numb. It's not that I don't care about things, but I don't experience true happiness all that much and just have an ambivalence I never had before that day. I've moved in most ways but my emotional range has never really recovered.
Don't Trust The Trust
Back in 2012 u worked in a mental hospital (UK) I was tasked to get a patient up, showered and dressed in the morning. I took him down to the dining room gave him some toast and left him too go on observations.
I walked down to the staff room to get the folder and walked to his dorm. As I went to leave he walked in looking very distressed. He was choking on some toast, I tried to help by back slaps and stomach compressions. He kept walking to his bed and tried to lie down that he did a few times and each time I picked him up to try and clear his airway. He clasped on his bed and I hit the panic alarm as I was trying to still clear his airway. Other staff took what felt like ages to arrive and later was informed that the alarm system had never been changed and was showing the wrong room and bed. He died in the hospital.
I was riddled with guilt. What was worse was his wife had been also brought in to the hospital and was on the female ward at the time this happened.
When I spoke to the solicitor for the Trust after giving my statement to the police. she informed me I would be looking at 20+ years for murder or best case scenario would be manslaughter.
I was never arrested by the police or placed under caution when I gave my statement. She got it in to her head that I was and that a Coroner would find me guilty. From there I would be arrested and charged. For ages I felt like I was being used as a scapegoat for failings and went into a spiral of depression. My stepfather at the time was an ex criminal solicitor and was trying to reassure me that I had nothing to worry about with her allegations. She never spoke to the Trust about me or the police but she kept on saying I killed him. Before the hearing started she told me to get my story straight this was in ear shot of my mum and sister. We put in a complaint just minutes be it started. During the hearing she was reprimanded by the Coroner several times as she kept objecting to questions being asked. The coroner stated it was not a criminal court and the police investigated and found no person responsible for his death. The next day I took the stand and gave my statement and answered all questions. The solicitor for the Trust never asked me a single question.
It was the most stressful and upsetting time of my life.
I have the opposite. I regret trying to save a life.
Im a nurse and I had a patient who was way into her late 80s. Had multiple issues. Had very advanced cancer with mets. She was very weak and had advanced dementia. Couldn't even tell me her name.Very debilitated and underweight.
Well her family was very conflicted in making her a DNR. Half her family wanted it, the other didn't want any more measures taken. Unfortunately the daughter with the medical power of attorney was the one wanting everything done.
It was late in my shift. I was working a night shift so daughter was asleep on the couch. I had noticed the patient was declining in status. Very rapidly. This poor frail 40kg women should have went peacefully. For a split second i told myself to pretend I didn't notice the decline and let her pass in her sleep.
Instead I panicked and began CPR. Daughter woke up and insisted we do everything. I was doing compressions with one hand, could hear the snaps and crunch of her ribs. Her mouth was foaming blood as we intubated her. Her eyes blood shot staring blankly at the ceiling. Her face sheet white and cold. Yet we continued to assault this poor soul because we were legally obligated to do so. She later passed the next day. We had prolonged her suffering by a day. Forced her under the agony of a ventilator.
Her death haunts me. I regret not letting her pass with dignity.
A Rare Situation
I was 19, first apartment, i had been moved in a few days and my roommates had gone out of town for the weekend, i had just bought a shotgun at a pawn shop because the neighborhood was pretty rough. I wake up around 2:30am to the front door being kicked in, i jumped up, grabbed the gun, and look down the hall, i see a guy walk into the living room, (my room was straight to the back from the door) i yelled to get the hell out because i had a gun, he turned, raised a pistol, i just started shooting as fast as i could pump it, fired five rounds and hit him with two or three before he got out the door, and took off. Neighbor heard the shots and called 911, police followed the blood trail into a backyard about a block away. He died on the way to the hospital, apparently was high as hell on meth when he broke in. It bothered me for a long time, but at the end of the day, in my eyes, it was him or me. Hope to never be in a situation like that again.
The Sad Tensions
Probably not the answer your looking for but my mom and twin sister died when i was born. My sister was going to struggle they knew that she might not make it but my mom started bleeding and they couldnt stop it. My oldest brother said my dad was different before. I know my dad loves me but theres always this weird feeling between us.
Life As A business
I've effectively killed plenty of people as a former ITU nurse (I lost count after a while, but I worked in a number of major trauma centres, so quite a few). All the evidence indicated that they were going to die, but by extubatung (pulling their breathing tube out), switching off their ventilator and life-sustaining drugs, I was the one who expedited their death.
To be honest, it never seemed to bother me as much as a lot of my colleagues. We'd often get support if we'd had a lot of deaths over a short-term period, and we'd have to go through all our feelings; but I'd usually end up giving them the answers they wanted to hear, because they wouldn't really get that I genuinely was fine.
Most days if you had a death you'd end up with another patient shortly after. I'd support the relatives as much as I could and wouldn't want them to feel in any way rushed, but my focus after they left would be on admitting and stabilising a new patient.
Frozen
I don't know if it counts as "taking a life" but I do feel responsible. I was in 5th grade and visiting my grandfather, there was no one in the house but us. He started having a stroke or a heart attack and he was reaching towards me because the home phone was near me. I just froze and watched him die, hours later I didn't even call the police or my parents. I've come to be very anxious when I see an elderly person and I try to avoid them, which has damaged the relationship between me and my grandparents that are still alive. I'm also a bit anxious when I'm in a house alone with one person, my boyfriend has been wanting me to move in with him but I prefer living at my parents' house with my parents and siblings.
Simply Trying To Help
I'm a nurse and my preferred specialty is hospice. The medications for pain relief we give also slow respiration and aid in the bodies natural process of death. So by giving these I essentially take a life. As a hospice nurse I have also been bedside for people who do not want these medications. 9 times out of 10 I feel relieved giving these medications and helping it along because death is a painful process. I feel that it is a way I can care for them and send them off loved and comfortable so I do not feel guilt at all.
For most of us, working with the dead isn't something we are going to have a whole lot of opportunity to do. That means most of us won't have a frame of reference for what is normal and what is "weird" when it comes to corpses, caskets, and the industry of death in general.
That might be why this reddit thread has generated some buzz.
People who work in graveyards/morgues/embalming bodies. What's the weirdest thing you've seen...?
It's not a world most of us get a peek into, so these responses are equal parts fascinating and kind of terrifying. We've got worms, exploding caskets, we've got one person who was the weird thing going on at the cemetery.
Yeah... things get interesting.
The Leftovers
Funerals and tombstones are the family business and my dad has lot of stories. One that really stood out was the time they were dropping a vault (cement box they the casket goes inside) into a gravesite before a funeral and noticed what looked like "large pieces of grilled meat" at the bottom of the hole.
On asking the cemetery directory what was up (the hole is supposed to be empty) , he was told to ignore it. He did not ignore it and instead brought it up with some others, eventually notifying the authorities. Turned out they had a crematorium on site and were only partially burning the bodies as a means of saving money. The leftovers were being dropped in the graves of others being buried. Few people went to jail for that apparently.
Romeo, Romeo
GiphyMy roommate worked in a graveyard in high school. Said he saw an old man hunched over in a chair at 6am from across the graveyard. Didn't think anything of it and let the man mourn in peace. Around lunch time he was still sitting there. He went up to him and saw that he was hunched over because he had shot himself from under the chin up. He said his blood was all over the grave of his wife who recently had died. Very sad Romeo and Juliet ending.
Stone-Hearted
A nearly 50 % calcified heart.
The man was in his mid 30's and unexpectedly passed. I'm only an assistant, but our chief has been in the field for 34 years and has never seen such an extensive calcification on someone so young, let alone someone that could live long enough for it to get that bad. He honestly had no idea how such a thing could even happen.
He was more impressed by the patients life span than the actual heart.
Never Get Used To It
I'm an EMT and our ambulance station is attached to the county morgue. Sometimes I'll assist the coroner or pathologist. I'll never get used to seeing someone I once saw alive laying in the anatomical position with their guts out.
Last time it was a girl who added me on Facebook that I was thinking of dating. I wasn't prepared to see her in there like that.
Not A Dignified Way
I worked in a jail and the county morgue was attached to it. I'd sometimes go help them move corpses around. One night we were transferring a body into a hearse to be taken to the funeral home. All of our gurneys are from like the 1950-1960's. They didn't really make them to handle a morbidly obese person back then. The gurney broke and dumped a very, VERY fat corpse on top of the new guy I was trying to show how to do the job. Knocked him over and pinned him underneath, and it took 3 of us to roll the corpse off of him.
He was in hysterics and quit, and we all got yelled at for it even though it was solely due to the fact that we have outdated and worn out equipment. But yeah, the bodies being brought in are bigger and bigger as years go on, and the equipment for handling corpses usually was only designed for bodies half that size at max. We tried to be as respectful as possible while handling the dead, but there's just not a dignified way to move a 500 pound dead person.
A Thorough Checking
My sister works for the county coroner. They sent off the body of a middle aged father who seemed to have passed away from a heart attack. She received a call asking if all of the man's orifices were thoroughly checked. Evidently he had a large sex toy in his colon.
One Way Trip
GiphyNot a worker, but I have severe epilepsy. I had a massive seizure while visiting my family's plot once and hit my head hard. My mom had to call an ambulance. At first, they didn't believe her when she gave the address, but finally one was sent. When it rolled it, the caretaker came out and hovered around while I was stabilized and loaded, then driven away.
Afterwards, while my mom was getting ready to follow it to the hospital, he said "Well, that's the first time they've ever taken any bodies OUT of here. It's normally a one way trip." Then he offered my mom a free plot and burial service if I didn't make it.
The Totaled Van
I worked as a gravedigger for a family owned Cemetery/Mortuary for a few years...20 years ago. Craziest thing that ever happened... I got a call from my boss at 11 pm one night. No alarms yet, we were on call on the weekends, so a late night call from the boss wasn't that weird. This is where normal ended. He asked me to come down to the cemetery, ASAP and open a grave that we scheduled to be opened first thing the next morning, but he needed it ...at midnight!?!?
He then tells me what's been happening. Apparently we dis-interred 2 caskets from a cemetery in the Los Angeles area. This was in the early 2000's and the bodies were originally buried 1979. I don't care what anyone says, stainless steel, waterproof caskets are a bad idea. The caskets were intact enough to be removed but when they were being put into the transportation van... they bumped together, and the corners of the caskets broke... releasing the contents. The fluid contents. All over the inside of the van. The driver was not happy. But, got on I-5 to Sacramento anyway for the 6 hour drive. The driver said he gagged the entire trip. He said the smell was so bad he drove with his head out the window to avoid the smell. He called the boss and told the boss that the graves need to be open and ready the second he arrived so that we could get these caskets in the ground and covered as soon as possible. Which we did.
The next day, before the mortuary opened we had locals calling in complaining about the smell. The Fire department came by, the police eventually called to inquire about the complains and the smell. It was coming, not from the grave, but from the van used to transport the caskets. We stripped out the carpet and burned it, the plastic came next and we bathed that in bleach, then drenched the inside of that van with every cleaning chemical that we had. Nothing helped. So, the boss called the insurance company.
The adjuster showed up, and the boss met him outside at his car, across the parking lot from the van. The adjuster immediately asked about the horrible smell. The Boss told him that it was coming from the van, and that why he was here. The adjuster looked at him for about 3 seconds and said, "it's totaled, I'll call a tow truck," then got back into his car and drove away.
Ascaris
A guy with an ascaris infestation (intestinal worms). As the body cools down they start exiting through the nose, mouth and all the orifices, which makes for a really gross spectacle. I had to finish pulling them out (they are long, wriggly and disgusting, and wouldn't stop coming) so I could commence my autopsy. I found more inside, too. Blegh.
Are You Real?
My neighbor has a funny story. She was visiting the hospital and got in the elevator. Now this hospital isn't built entirely on the same elevation. The main entrance is on top of a hill. This means that to get to the main floor, you have to press the 1st floor button. Underneath that button is another floor labeled M. She thought it was labeled M, for main floor. It was actually labeled M, because that floor was the morgue. So she gets off at the morgue level to try and figure out where she is. The mortician comes around the corner and nearly has a heart attack when he sees her. After asking her if she's real, he shows her that the first floor is the main floor and helps her get to the main entrance.
Worth It
My father worked cleaning a hospital morgue for a while. His co-worker was supposed to transport an amputated limb from the morgue to the furnace out back, which was at the top of a steep hill that had been covered with snow and a thick layer of ice from freezing rain and sleet the day before.
Dad was at the bottom of the hill and, thinking it would be funny, the dude waved the amputated leg at my dad. Then he dropped it, watching in horror as it skidded all the way down the icy hill into a small crowd of visitors-- which included some of the hospital's investors-- who screamed bloody murder and took off in random directions. He was fired, but later considered the story in itself to be worth losing his job.
Melted
My uncle used to be an EMT in a really small town in PA, so they pretty much deal the with everything. Neighbors hadn't seen this old lady in quite some time so called 911 and my uncle and his crew went to see what was up. Lady had died doing something to the furnace (old school in your living room type one) and when she died she landed on it and pretty much "melted" onto it. They had to scrape her off. I can only imagine what seeing that does to people...
A String
GiphyWe were prepping the body and removed the sheet to find a cotton string tied around his penis. Another funeral home had embalmed him so I can only assume they put it there. But why?
- exsxfxy
"Dancing" On His Grave
Worked in cemetery as a teen in the mid 60's. The old widow probably in her late 50s would bring her new boyfriend and have sex on her deceased husbands grave stone. We had to chase them off several times.
- Simpdogg
Partials
A friend of mine is in the business that his family has owned for a while.
A guy called asking a LOT of technical questions about the crematorium. How hot does it get, how long do you do it etc.
After answering questions he asks what is going on.
The callers dad was in his late 80s and had a terminal illness. They want to do a home cremation.
They explain that you can't really do that that there are laws and procedures with the police and hospital etc. The caller dismissed all of that legal mumbo jumbo and thanked him for the info.
A couple of months go by and the guy calls back.
How much do you charge for a "partial" cremation? A partial? What is going on there.
I guess the dad died and they got a bunch of railroad ties and tried to burn the dad up in the backyard. The partial was the leftovers from the fire.
For those that don't know you have to have temperatures way higher than you ever could reproduce in your backyard to completely burn up a body
After they said they didn't do partials the guy hung up.
- Chum731
The Whistleblower
I used to process bodies that were donated to science. This company would offer a free cremation for people if they could take parts they could use. They promised a minimum percentage of ashes returned (I think 40%) thru would take a lot of knees, shoulders, elbows and doctors could practice using Magellan surgeries. Had one woman come in. She weighed 65 lbs. And I had no problem lifting her myself.
Cancer ate her up. These people were mostly poor people that had been stuck on some institution. Her hip had dislocated and refused to her pelvis. She had horrible rotting bed sores. I had just started the job and was about four weeks into training. I was worried the job would be too much and this woman was what I was afraid for. It took me back so much that I asked my boss if this was something we should report to authorities. A week later they tell me they don't think I'm suited for this line of work and show me the door.
Human Soup
My father in law served in the RAF in Germany in the early 80s. He was a driver but was somehow given the job of body Collector for the local morgue along with a few others.
He's told us loads of stories, but one that sticks out the most was when they were called to a railway line.
They were told to bring shovels. That's when they knew it was bad. He said all they could do was shovel as much as what was left of the man, onto a gurney.
He then told us how he'll never forget the sound of the remains sliding off the gurney into the body bag.
"It was basically human soup"
When you are but a breath away from the wrong step and certain death, life shifts perspective for you.
Humans sometimes forget that they are mortal and that at any moment, they may face the end of their lives. When confronted with that mortality, people have a hard time fully grasping that. It can cause a full shift in their lives.
And chances are, you'll never forget the incident that almost ended your life.
u/ferfeb asked:
Here were some of those answers.
Trigger warnings: violence, blood, moments of terror, death.
Hostage Situation
I was an English teacher in Honduras. About 8 months in myself and 4 other volunteers decided to go to a "bar" a few towns over(the closest one) to celebrate one of their birthdays. A few hours in, a group of 4 men came in with masks and HUGE guns and told everyone to drop to the floor. Being half in the bag (or possibly more), I decided to hide in the men's washroom as I was right beside it.
I got yanked out by one of the men and pushed up against the wall. He then held the gun to my head and told me to give him everything I had. He then told us 4 (we were put together on the wall as we were obviously the ones that were not from around there), and said if we reported them, they knew where we worked (and they did), and would kill us. We reported the incident (although nothing came from it), and I was back home in Canada 3 days later.
Thank Goodness Indeed
GiphySlipped on some rocks and was about to fall 20-30 feet into the ocean and more rocks. When you see someone in the movies falling and they grab on to basically nothing. That can't happen you think. Wrong, thank goodness.
Away From The Cliffside
I went hiking with a friend and her family in 6th grade during a camping trip they invited me on. We were coming back down and I lost my footing and feel. I started sliding towards a cliff and a bush caught me. If not for that bush I would have gone off a 200ft (at least/best guess) drop into a lake.
Even now at 21 hiking makes nervous.
Saved From The Tupperware
Shoeing horses. Was tucked under the hind end of one when something spooked him. I got dragged down between his hind legs. He was in cross ties so he could only really move side to side so neither of us could get away. Luckily my boss was nearby and was able to untie him and get him off me.
I was really lucky and got off mostly okay. Had a few broken ribs, a punctured and collapsed lung, broke my nose, and got a bunch of soft tissue injuries in my right arm.
But it got me out of a Tupperware party I didn't want to go to so all in all 10/10 would get trampled again
Just Driftin'
My doctor prescribed me medications that had an interaction which suppressed my central nervous system. Basically it felt like I was taking heavy tranquilizers constantly.
At the time I was commuting on a mountain road to go to night school and the meds made me so tired I almost fell asleep driving multiple times. After I almost got in what would have been a huge accident I withdrew from school for the semester.
Another doctor figured it out, took me off my meds, and I felt like a new person within days.
Just The Wrong Angle
Slipped in a club and fell onto a half pint glass. The glass shattered and sliced open my wrist, nicking the artery and the tendon and opening my palm to the bone.
Plus side; just before I went I to shock I got to see my tendon move like the terminator! Minus side; I accidentally covered a bunch of people in my blood. Oh, and the surgeries... and the scar on my wrist
An Old Injury
Hit by a car doing 70mph back in 1989 - shattered my femur, half of it turned to dust, the other half ripped its way out my outer thigh as if to say "welp, gotta go kiddo, my work here is done...".
Fractured skull with brain swelling, smashed knee, smashed hip, internal bleeding - according to most witnesses, I looked like I'd stepped on a landmine.
I spent 6 months in hospital, was fitted with a custom titanium reinforced composite femur, had to relearn how to walk. The scar went keloid and its about 8 inches long, going from my hip to my knee.
In 1993 I had to have the bone swapped out for an adult one so as not to screw up my growth. I walk fine but I run with a limp.
A Warning To All
I made the mistake of driving drunk. Not, "a little tipsy" and not, "I'm pretty sure I'm fine".... Drunk with a capital D.
I am a complete jerk for driving in that state. I didn't even remember getting home. Fortunately nobody got hurt, but waking up in bed the next morning with no recollection of how I got there...
I could have killed someone and myself. Please, anyone reading this: There is always someone willing to come pick you up and drive you home. Don't let pride get in the way of that. It is always the safer option.
Just Typical Of Newark
I was almost run over by a speeding bus in my teens. I lived in Newark, NJ at the time, and I was listening to Slipknot on my Zune (lol). I was going to cross the street, when a song came on that I didn't wanna listen to, so I stopped for a second to hit next, and the exact second I did, a bus flew past me, just inches away from my face. I literally felt the wind almost knock me back. The driver had ignored a red light and just kept on going, and I would've been mush, if I hadn't stopped to select a different song. Slipknot's Iowa album literally saved my life, in a way.
We Have Ignition
GiphyI was an aircraft hydraulics specialist and while looking for a leak in a 3,000 psi pressure line, a pinhole leak started right next to my head and shaved off a bit of hair just above my ear. Had I been just an inch or two to the left I would of had a stream of high pressure fluid cut right into my skull.