Read Online Down Among the Dead Men by Michelle Williams - Free Book Online Page A

deceased. It is all done very smoothly (assuming that the family allow
this), but there is a lot to do beforehand. It means getting into the mortuary in plenty of time before the family, making sure we are dressed in suitable clothing to present ourselves to the
family, then getting the deceased out of the fridge. It is essential that you ensure that you have the right person for the right family (understandably, they can get very angry if you show them a
dead stranger) and then you have the task of making the deceased presentable. Death sometimes has a horrible way of leaving a person looking unpeaceful, as I remembered from my first week with the
old gentleman whose mouth was gaping and eyes were staring.
    I asked Clive about this, and he decided that there was no time like the present, so he took me through to the body store and got a random body out of the fridge. It just so happened that this
person had died with their eyes and mouth open. Clive went on to complain about this becoming more regular when a person died on the ward. There was and is in place the Trust’s ‘Last
Offices’ policy that requires the ward to present the body to the mortuary in a suitable manner; this involves packing of cavities and, where possible, closing eyes. If this is done just
after death then the eyelids will stay down but, if not, it becomes a problem. At least in this case, the fact that they hadn’t followed the policy had done me a favour, as Clive would be
able to show me exactly what to do, but I could tell he was upset that the body had been sent to the mortuary from the ward in this way. He had high standards when it came to how the deceased
should be treated. He didn’t seem to deal with the living too kindly, but at least he had great pride in his job.
    He started to show me how to make things better. He got a pillow and placed it under the deceased’s head; he then got a head block and placed that under the pillow; raising the head this
way caused the mouth to close. Next he got a tiny piece of cotton wool and some forceps; he placed the smallest amount of cotton wool on the eye and lifted the eyelid over it. This simple act
caused the eye to stay closed. Clive preferred this to gluing the eyelids together with superglue – which some morticians do – and, I have to admit, I was immediately sold, so that it
is a practice I still follow today. He told me about how his predecessor preferred to put an invisible stitch in the mouth, but that he considered such practices very invasive and preferred to see
if he could solve the problems through other means. By the time Clive had finished, the deceased looked peaceful, as if he were sound asleep. To help with this, Clive had worked out the worry lines
in the forehead by gently massaging them and straightened the mouth to a relaxed look. He made everything look so easy, and was rightly proud of his achievement.
    It took Clive all of ten minutes to do this but what worried me was that, at least to begin with, I knew it would take me longer.
    The switchboard was given my number and, as of the following week, I would be officially on call for the hospital. This went for the Coroner too, as I would also be working for him in a
roundabout way; in turn, Clive added, that meant the possibility of having to do forensic post-mortems.
    I had heard Clive and Graham mention forensic post-mortems before but didn’t really understand what they were. When I asked, Clive said, matter of factly, ‘You know, suspicious
deaths, murders, that kind of thing.’
    ‘Murders?’ I began to panic.
    Clive smiled. ‘Every now and again, Michelle, every now and again.’
     
    FOURTEEN
    The next week flew by, being only four days, but without a lot of PM work – although we had had several deaths through the doors, most of them had been expected and did
not require autopsy – so we spent much of the week cleaning and I got to know Graham a lot better. Like Clive, he had also worked