A life less ordinary?

Introduction

I would like to take the opportunity to explain a few details, which are not known to most people concerning the process of death; I will refer throughout to the deceased as ‘patients’; this is because I believe that everyone, regardless of their status in life, is entitled to a modicum of respect; I do not like the term ‘body’ when referring to the deceased.

Some names have been changed to protect the innocent or protect me from the guilty.

Embalming is the process of preserving the patient after death, the process involves injecting the blood vessels with a formaldehyde based fluid, aspirating, or removing by suction, the body fluids, a process similar to that of liposuction, albeit more gentle, and the injection of the body cavities with another, stronger fluid.

A post mortem examination, or PM involves the removal of all the organs via a full length incision of the torso, and the removal of the brain. These procedures, performed by a skilled technician may be done ‘invisibly’; there is no reason for the family and friends of the patient to see any evidence of the examination having been performed.

There are many myths surrounding the process, many people believe that the patient may not be seen after the PM, this is not so: Most patients look better, not worse afterwards. Blood, which has suffused the face, often giving the impression of bruising, drains away. Facial injuries, left for the pathologist to note can be repaired and hair is shampooed and styled. Overall, the post mortem is not a reason for the family to worry. Any concerns should be raised with the mortuary staff prior to the PM, so that any special requirements may be taken into consideration when performing the examination.

Chapter 1

Ginns and Gutteridge.

On the 25^th of June 1979, aged 17 years, one week and four days: Bursting with the conviction with which every teenager is filled, and aware of none of the naiiveté, which they have in equal measure. I walked from the bright summer sunshine into the cool marbled tranquillity of Ginns and Gutteridge Ltd: the biggest and most famous family-owned funeral directors in Leicester, and began living amongst the dead.

In front of me a staircase rose to the upper floors, to the left was the small reception office, to the right, the splendid William Gutteridge memorial chapel.

I had, until then, spent a reasonably normal, uneventful life, doing little of note or notoriety, and had anyone suggested a year previously that I would be seeking to make my living doing anything remotely connected with dead people would have caused me to squirm!

In the intervening year, however, my interests had changed somewhat, my boyfriend at this time was an embalmer, and I became interested and read his textbooks. I thought it sounded far more interesting than the job I was doing at the time. So I sought a Youth Opportunities training programme. G & G agreed to interview me, and I was accepted for a six-month period as a trainee embalmer. Over the next 17 years I was to encounter literally thousands of deceased, their relatives and friends, their problems and their heartbreak.

On that first day, I spent most of my time typing, and sorting out arrangements for medical school funerals; people who leave their bodies to medical science are either buried or cremated after three years. I had been taken on as a trainee embalmer, and I had, secretly been a little disappointed at being shepherded upstairs and given paperwork to do, and hoped they weren’t intending to keep me from the ‘business’ end of things for very long.

As the day drew towards its close, “Mr Arthur” (Gutteridge) arrived and I was introduced. He asked me if I’d been 'downstairs’ yet, I replied that I hadn’t; ‘well how do you know if you’re going to like it then?’ he asked good-naturedly.

“Mr Paul” (Ginns) took the hint; ‘Well I have to go and check on Jeffrey’s handiwork, so would you like to come with me?’

We made our way down to the chapels of rest. He drew back the heavy brocade curtain of the nearest one, and before the words ‘you don’t have to look if you don’t want to’ were out of his mouth, I was in there, looking at my first dead person.

There they lay; in a coffin, wearing what appeared to be a dressing gown. It was like looking at a shop-window mannequin: pale, powdered and set-looking.

I cannot remember to this day whether it was a man or a woman, I do remember referring to them as ‘it’ – ‘it’s got dirty nails’ I said when Paul asked what I thought: ‘Ah, yes, I’ll get Jeffrey to sort that out’ he said. He called out, and Jeffrey came gangling through the concealed door at the other end of the passage, I remember thinking ‘Oh my God, what’s THAT?’ on seeing him; he was very tall and very thin, with a haircut that looked like it belonged to someone with a far smaller head.

I wondered what on earth I had let myself in for, I need not have worried, Jeff (or Jeffypoos, as he was to become known) had an outrageous sense of humour, as well as being a good and hard working colleague and teacher, we soon became firm friends.

I had a gentle introduction; for the most part the men I worked with treated me like a daughter, I being the only female ‘downstairs’. It was a while before I was deemed ‘tough’ enough to see someone who had had a post-mortem examination, and I was never allowed to see a dead baby, the men thought it might upset me.

That is not to say that I was always treated with kid gloves; I was ‘initiated’ – hung up by the feet with webbing straps used to lift people into their coffins, and left there, dangling upside down whilst they went for their tea-break! It wasn’t so much the initiation per se I minded; but I HATE being upside down!

One of the jobs Jeffrey and I had to do was vacuuming the chapels of rest, or ‘restrooms’ as they were known, at the end of the day; there were two sets, one on the ground floor, and one in the basement. I didn’t like doing the basement; the wind howled down the lift shaft making wailing noises, (funnily enough, one of the only things that ever spooked me). I used to go along and open all the curtains first, just to ensure that nobody was lurking behind them. It wasn’t the dead people that worried me, more the thought of some practical joker scaring me stupid and 'dining out' at my expense!
The chaps had taken great delight in telling me that restroom G was never used because it was haunted. This I did not believe; for one thing, what self-respecting spectre would limit itself to a small curtained cubicle when they could roam the entire premises?

The real reason it was never used was that it housed a magnificent, American-style casket; bronze, sumptuously padded and lined with primrose coloured satin. It looked very comfortable, and I felt there was the distinct possibility that some of my more fun-loving ‘uncles’ would find great amusement in incarcerating a certain trainee in it! My fear was entirely claustrophobic: I like enclosed spaces even less than I like being hung upside down!

One occasion when I was scared out of my wits occurred not long into my six-month stint there; Mr Paul was overseeing my embalming, I had completed the injection stage and was aspirating the fluids when, suddenly the little old lady upon whom I was operating, began to groan! I jumped and grabbed Paul’s arm, ‘She’s alive!’ I squealed.

Paul quickly explained that a) since I had just filled her blood vessels with embalming fluid, there was no way that she was anything but dead, and b) I had accidentally pushed the trocar into her windpipe, causing air to be sucked into her mouth, past her vocal cords, hence the sound. I swear had he not been there I would have run out so fast, no one would have seen me for dust!
Strangely the idea of finding someone ‘not dead’ remained my greatest fear. Some years later, an elderly lady was actually taken into G & G, having 'died' at home and been certified by her GP. She was noticed to be still alive just as they were putting her into cold storage, she was admitted to intensive care, and as I understand it, survived for quite some time before dying ‘for real’.

I was often asked if I was scared of dead people; I had my stock answer; ‘Why should I be? My patients are only going to hurt me one of two ways; 1: If they fall on me from a great height, which would be my own, or a colleague’s fault, and 2: If I contracted a communicable disease from them, which again, would be my fault, not theirs.

I did have an unpleasant encounter with some embalming fluid; Jeffrey and I were embalming a small boy who had died in a road accident, and his sister was in intensive care. Her doctors estimated that if she survived for a month, she would make it. With the dreadful realisation that they may have to bury both of their children, their parents held off their sons' funeral in case it had to be a double one.

We had to ensure that our embalmment of him was sufficient to preserve him for that long. Because his death was unexpected, in accordance with the law, he had had a coroner’s post-mortem. We injected each blood vessel and organ individually. As I was injecting his liver with an hypodermic syringe, without realising, my mouth had fallen open in concentration; I hit a returning blood vessel. The fluid squirted down my throat, burning as it went. Spitting into the sink, I stripped off my gloves and apron, and pelted across the yard to the garage, and into the mess-room, where I retched and gulped water, feeling sick at what I’d done, and wondering if I’d poisoned myself. I learned an important lesson that day; keep one’s mouth shut when one is embalming!

I learned to be meticulous about hygiene, protecting myself by treating all my patients as a potential source of infection, they could not warn me about any infection they carried; I had to protect myself.

This attitude became deeply, perhaps obsessively ingrained, and caused a strange juxtaposition when I was dealing with people I knew and loved. When my Grandma died, although I knew she had nothing I could catch, after touching her I still used my elbow on the door handles and used ‘non-touch’ technique until I had washed my hands. I was painfully aware of the conflict in my head; ‘don’t be daft, it’s Granny; Yes, but she’s still dead’. I could not kiss her goodbye.

Over the years I have witnessed an amazing array of mourning and grief; at G & G I experienced one of the most memorable. An elderly lady had died; A Mrs Smith, as I recall; she was apparently the matriarch of an enormously extended Romany Gypsy family, I wish I could remember her name, I’m sure it began with ‘L’. I’d never heard it before, it was beautiful: I wish I could remember!

Hers was the biggest funeral I have ever seen, as my memory serves me, there were literally hundreds of people there. She was one popular lady.

As I helped compile the list of all her hundreds of floral tributes, I noticed that several of them were from women or girls, also with the unusual name: they must have been named after her.

Having her huge family visit her in one of the usual chapels of rest was unthinkable! She lay in state in the William Gutteridge Memorial Chapel, and the family filed in through the rear doors, past her coffin, which lay in the aisle, and out of the door, I did not begin to attempt to count them all. Likewise I could not count the number of vehicles in her funeral procession. The company had borrowed vehicles and drivers from funeral directors far and wide, the limousines rolled slowly and sedately out of the front doors. Following the hearse bearing the lady herself was another containing floral tributes, these were followed by several open trucks, all bearing still more flowers. The traffic in the centre of Leicester was at a standstill for several minutes, as a steady flow of cars trundled out of the doors, queuing down the road at the rear of the premises, driving in through the back doors and processing out onto the ring-road, following this much-loved lady.

Although in the main, my time at G&G was a happy one, it was not all roses; the foreman who was in charge of the driver/bearers thought that it was “not the place for a young lady”; I strongly suspect what he really meant was that he didn’t like me!

He banned me from everywhere on the premises he could within his remit, including the driver’s mess. This meant that rather than eating with the chaps with whom I worked and got along, at the risk of seeing someone changing into their pinstripes, I was sentenced to eat my lunch in the shed with the carpenters. In those days G&G made most of the coffins they used, and had a coffin-shop and a full staff of chippies. Unfortunately some of them were not as refined as the drivers and I was witness to all manner of foul language and ribald commentary, not the sort of thing a ‘young lady’ should hear at all!

As my six months drew to a close, it was clear that there was no position for me to take up, but as fate would have it, Leicester Royal Infirmary was advertising for a mortuary technician.

Chapter 2
L.R.I.
I successfully applied for the post and began work on the 14th of January 1980 there were just two of us at that time, the senior member of staff, John was on sick leave having had part of one his lungs removed due to cancer. It was a busy time; it was a busy place. John briefly returned to work, he was a pleasant little man who had spent time in Australia; tea-breaks were always referred to by him as ‘smoke-oh’. He entertained me with stories of his travels and the fact that the metal pin he had in a broken bone in his neck set off the metal-detectors at airports.
Only a short time later John died, the surgery had bought him but a few short months.
The LRI was not only the main accident and emergency facility for the county, but also served as the public mortuary, therefore anyone who died at home, in the street, even in some of the smaller hospitals in the county, came to us. Some patients would subsequently have death certificates issued by their doctors, but many did not. In the winter we would perform up to 20 coroner’s post-mortems a day, with six tables and 2 members of staff. I quickly became versed in the procedures of opening and closing, and later learned to eviscerate and do intricate dissections such as removal of the spinal cord and the tiny bones of the inner ear. As well as learning the intricacies of human anatomy and physiology, I also had to learn the foibles of the pathologists. At that time there were four consultants, all with their little preferences and quirks, knives had to be razor-sharp, instruments and specimen containers laid out ready, and we had to be on the ball. Over the next few months two more staff were recruited and as the weather warmed with the approach of spring the workload eased.
There was no time or truck allowable for queasiness nor was there any of the kid glove treatment I had received at G & G regarding the babies. ‘The royal’ also has a large maternity hospital. On the contrary, being female, I was deemed to have ‘the touch’ when it came to dealing with parents who had lost a child, although I suspect that the men would just sooner not deal with bereaved parents. As a childless young woman, I was not especially upset by dealing with the dead babies; most of them were premature, tiny scraps of humanity, just born too soon to live. Later as a mother, I learned to distance myself as a defence mechanism, a necessary step as I discovered just how inhumane some people can be towards their own children.

Of suicide, homicide and infanticide
For many people, one would imagine that this is the area of the pathology technician’s job, which holds the most fascination. The truth of the matter is that for the most part, homicides mean a lot of ‘hurry up and wait’- often in the middle of the night! The technician needs to be on site to open up the department, ensure that all the required equipment is assembled, ready for the onslaught of police, Scene of Crime Officers, visiting pathologists etc. Working on homicide cases can be tedious, the minutiae of continuity of evidence, photography, measuring and taking clean specimens for analysis all takes so much longer than in a straightforward case, and far longer than portrayed on TV. And at the end of the day, the tech is always left behind to clean up and tidy away, long after everyone else has gone back home to bed. A mortuary in the wee small hours is one of the loneliest places in the world, and knowing that one needs to be back on duty in not many hours time is one of the less pleasant aspects of a particularly unpleasant job.
Another unpleasant aspect is that of having to deal with people one knows, this happened several times throughout my career; friends, acquaintances and colleagues have, unfortunately passed through my professional hands.
One occasion is particularly memorable; a funeral director brought a patient in, informing me that they had a ‘dirty body’ (this expression is not of my choosing, but unfortunately, is accepted parlance) meaning that the patient was badly decomposed. The funeral director handed me the wristband bearing the patients details - I nearly fell through the floor; it was a friend, who I had understood to have moved away a few weeks earlier, apparently he had not moved at all, but committed suicide.
He had talked to me about his depression, I had tried to help, but obviously I had failed. I’d even half jokingly, in one of his better moods, asked him not to kill himself in the county, as I did not want to have to deal with him, but here he was; bloated, blackened and beyond help. It was with a heavy heart that I set about undressing him and going through the process of searching his clothes and logging his possessions.






Copyright J.L. Rushin 2005