Funeral workers are experienced and discreet people. They have seen a lot, and it is not easy to scare them, or at least make them worry. But even the most experienced employees in this field have accidents that will turn gray even the most inveterate atheist. Today, funeral directors share some of the most macabre experiences in their professional practice.
Shrunken corpse
A funeral home owner with 20 years of experience recalls preparing a body for burial late at night. The ceremony was to take place early in the morning, so he had to stay late. The work went on as usual, but, once again turning to take the tools, the unfortunate undertaker suddenly noticed out of the corner of his eye that the deceased was sitting on the bed! The poor fellow was so scared that he did not even have time to think what it was - he just flew out of the room, like a cork from a bottle, almost done off with fright. However, the deceased never resurrected, but what it was - either muscle spasms of rigor mortis, or a deception of vision, or a little bit of everything - the poor fellow never found out: it was beyond his strength to force himself to enter the room.
Death grip
Imagine that you are a regular hospital attendant, and your job is to prepare corpses for tissue collection. It takes a significant amount of time in preparation to shave the donor corpse: both hands and feet must be clean-shaven before the doctor begins the procedure. Once he had to deal with the body of a man who had just passed away - so recently that rigor mortis had not yet completely bound the corpse. To shave his hand, the orderly took the deceased by the fingers and stretched his limb more comfortably … and then the dead man's fingers slowly tightened on his wrist!
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Of course, there was nothing supernatural in this - just a muscle spasm characteristic of the process of rigor mortis. But this minute the almost gray-haired orderly will hardly ever be able to forget.
The moaning of the dead
Many specialists who worked with corpses talk about how, at the beginning of their careers, they were terribly frightened when they heard the corpse grunt and groan. Such a fear is typical for newcomers to the profession, the old-timers authoritatively confirm. The fact is that the dead often have some air in their lungs. Any, even the smallest compression of the body forces the air to escape. On the way, he passes through the vocal cords, expelling from them quiet sounds, similar either to a groan of pain, or to the suffering of unrequited love. Do not be afraid of this: the sounding corpse is still deader than dead. Actually, even novice doctors know about this, but when they first hear the groans of a dead man, they forget about everything in the world.
Liquid fraction
When a funeral director was asked which incident he considered the most macabre of his career, he immediately recalled the day he had to prepare the body of a very obese woman for burial. Death and heat in such cases do their job quickly - the corpse begins to leak: this is how physiological fluids come out of it. But this time the scale of the disaster was simply amazing! In the end, having pretty much smashed their heads, they completely wrapped the corpse in plastic trash bags, and put clothes on top of the bags. This was the only way the funeral could pass without a flood.
The trembling of the dead
One day, a pathologist was filling out an autopsy report right on the table next to the deceased, when the body suddenly trembled finely. By his own admission, he has not experienced such horror in his entire life. Only professional pride kept him indoors. Fortunately, after the attack of trembling, the body no longer moved. When the unfortunate, frightened pathologist began to question his colleagues, it turned out that some of them also observed a similar phenomenon. Either this is due to residual spasms of rigor mortis, or maybe with the release of gases - but, one way or another, most doctors know about such a trick. And the less experienced, as our story shows, can always be told by colleagues - if the speech about this property of dead bodies accidentally comes before the young doctor tests it on himself. Otherwise, problems with nerves cannot be avoided!
Flickering lights
Many funeral and mortuary staff report that when a body is brought into a funeral hall or morgue, the lights in the room start to flicker. One nurse said: as soon as the body crosses the threshold of the morgue, the light in the morgue itself goes out for a few moments. At any other time, there were no problems with electricity in the room. According to her, she was scared every time she observed this phenomenon, for which she did not find a reasonable scientific explanation.
Doves - the scourge of God
The funeral agent recalls how the family of the deceased decided to release a pigeon into the sky at the funeral. The agent did his best to advise them not to, but the relatives were adamant. As a result, as soon as the pigeon flew out of the cage, one of them was immediately attacked by a hawk flying from a nearby tree and instantly tore it apart. The meaning of the symbolic action remained incomprehensible to anyone except the hawk, of course.
Take care of your eyes
If a deceased person suddenly falls out of a glass eye, it can deprive the healthcare professional of self-confidence for the rest of his life. Actually, he doesn't even need to drop out. The assistant funeral director describes the funeral of a cute old lady as the scariest story at work. According to the last will of the deceased herself, she had to lie in a coffin with wide open eyes - two, including an artificial one. The time before the funeral began seemed like an eternity to the assistant director: wherever she went, the damn glass eye seemed to be looking at her without blinking. It sounds funny - but the girl was really scared, so much so that she considers this incident the most nightmarish in her life.
Friends of man
The dog is ready for anything for the sake of its owner - and he, as a rule, pays her in return. How far this reciprocity extends, a woman who worked as an assistant to the director of a funeral home learned from her own sad experience. One day she was asked to bring some old documents from the attic, and she obediently followed them. The first thing she saw in the attic was a child-sized coffin. It's not uncommon for a funeral home, and the woman, whose hands were busy with papers, pushed him out of the way with her foot. And … and immediately realized that there was someone inside! She rushed faster than the wind to the owner of the bureau with a message about the terrible find. But, as it turned out, the director knew this coffin very well: there was an embalmed dog in it, waiting for its owner to leave to be buried with him. True,formally, there is no such service in funeral homes. But the owner paid enough to forget about the rules. The dog was embalmed no worse than the ancient Egyptian cats, and now she had to spend many years in the attic, waiting for the owner to die. This, I understand, is friendship!
Twins
Many awkward, strange, and even downright creepy situations occur at the funeral of twins, according to the funeral market pros. One funeral director recalls the funeral of a drowned boy, whose twin brother, by the will of his parents, came to the funeral ceremony in exactly the same clothes that the deceased was wearing. As a result, not only the funeral director, but also all those who had gathered without exception, from time to time looked at the boy standing next to his father and mother with horror, as if at a ghost. Another funeral director recalls the funeral of a man who had clearly not communicated with his twin brother for a long time - so long ago that not all of his friends and acquaintances at all knew that the deceased had a brother who looked like him like two drops of water. So, when this very twin appeared in the crowd of those who came to the funeral, it was very clearly visible,who of the guests knew about the presence of the deceased twin brother, and who did not.
Clown funeral
As funeral agencies say, the funeral of clowns is a completely separate case, when even the funeral director does not always know whether to cry or laugh. So, one representative of this profession asked to be buried in a full clown costume and in the appropriate make-up, and relatives and friends who came to the funeral, as one, painted themselves one teardrop at the corner of their eyes, as clowns sometimes do when applying makeup. Do you think it was decent to laugh at such a great joke? And the family of another representative of this worthy profession asked that the manager and workers at the funeral in honor of the deceased be in full clown clothes. And the agency went for it because the client was willing to pay handsomely for his quirk. Imagine what a circus was going on during the ceremony!
Man without eyes
One morgue attendant still recalls with horror the case when a corpse without eyes was brought to him for embalming. And, most importantly, without warning him about it! He will never forget a few seconds of shock when looking into empty eye sockets! Of course, he quickly came to his senses and, closing his eyes, returned to work. Then colleagues from the pathological department claimed the blame for the incident, saying that they simply forgot to put the corpse in order after the examination. But the orderly himself suspects that this was not the most clever professional joke.
Mother's love
One funeral director considers the funeral of a toddler whose parents were divorced to be the most macabre case in professional practice. At the funeral, the mother was completely distraught with grief and, after waiting for the rest of the participants in the ceremony to turn away from the coffin, snatched the body from there and, quickly hiding it under her coat, moved to her car. Together, the unfortunate woman was able to calm down. But, as the funeral director admits, he went through the most terrible moments when he learned that the child died due to the injuries that his mother apparently inflicted on him.
Jigsaw puzzle
One funeral director considers the funeral of a man who has shot himself in the head with a gun to be the most gruesome of his career, because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The relatives of the deceased insisted that he be buried in an open coffin, and they could once again see his face, which, given the nature of the injury, was, to put it mildly, difficult. Morgue workers literally collected the face piece by piece. Unfortunately for himself, the manager came to them to ask about the progress of the work exactly at the moment when all the details of the creepy puzzle were laid out on the table, and the deceased's face looked like an empty frame. According to him, he will not forget this terrible sight until the end of his life.
Long bathing
Many funeral directors consider the most unpleasant cases in practice when they are asked to bury a person whose body was found only long after death. So, one of the funeral homes was approached by the relatives of a man who died in a bathtub full of water and was discovered only two weeks after death. With great difficulty, they managed to make sure that the body could be buried. And the relatives of a man who died in his own garage, and in the warm season, and was found only three weeks later, turned to another agency. In this case, despite the insistent requests of the family, the funeral experts could not do anything - the body could no longer be honorably buried, and they could only be cremated.