Behind the Scenes: Funeral Home

most people when faced with the somber necessity of going to the funeral home whether to arrange for a loved one service or to attend a visitation would typically walk in the front door I'm Rick Koster for the DICOM and I'm sitting in front of the biles Memorial Home in New London Stephen King wrote death is a mystery and burial is a secret as part of our behind-the-scenes series today we're going to take you to the other door the back door of a funeral home and tell you what actually goes on behind the scenes at a funeral home standing with God miles he's the third-generation owner of we're in the garage where the hearse and a family limousine are washed and stored in addition there's a transport van which is a discrete mechanism to remove a body from a residence or a retirement facility since a hearse is a bit of a disquieting assembly also in the garage or such items as traffic signs to indicate a funeral in progress shipping materials if cremated remains need to be mailed to other parts of the country and a refrigeration unit in the case of cremations we have to hold bodies for 48 hours without any preparation work being done so we would use this to slow down the decomposition all right okay and also for any funerals where people don't require a request embalming so in the state of Connecticut anyway you don't have to by law be involved that's correct so this is the garage and now you're going to show us the storage room storage room is right this way a storage room is well a storage room but it also includes a small workspace and one of the procedures done here is the transference of ashes which miles receives from any of a number of private crematoriums this is they called an emerald green marble an urn and this is actually the cremated remains of an individual not like what you see on TV it's much more dense the whole business about casting the four winds doesn't work it's it's more the consistency of beach sand really is what it is okay but it's a simple procedure take this bag put an incision in the top and then just put it on top of the funnel like so everybody interestingly enough Rick whether they're as big as yours thin as me is about the same amount of ash when we're all done so that was a storage area and now I guess it's probably time to go to the room that most people are most curious about or maybe even most even I'm suspicious about and that would be the embalming room so come on in and here we do have two tables and bombing tables that we do use this is the embalming machine itself which is a pump which will pump the embalming fluid through regard to reason and it is drained out through the veins this is the embalming machine it's like the gargoyle of finality and in fact it sort of looks like an office water cooler then over here we have some of the instruments that we use in use we do use a scalpel because we have to make an incision we use aneurism hooks that we use to be able to find the arteries and veins that we do use and set up we use what they call I caps for the help keep the eyes closed so that during the callin hours or something like that they are they don't pop open on us one of the most important things to remember about an embalming room is how to rific aliy important cleanliness and sanitation is not only does the embalming room have a powerful ventilation system there's also if you notice UV lights which about its powerful cleansing agent as you can get in terms of disinfectant after embalming makeup hair and clothing the casket is transported upstairs for viewing via a large elevator for purposes of demonstration Don and Joan are letting us use an empty casket today the contrast between the intense lighting and the embalming room and the subtle illumination in the viewing room is pronounced as such there are colored lights and set into the ceiling that can be adjusted and focused to help facilitate the natural appearance of the makeup or spotlight the floral arrangements on the casket another element of mood is provided by the music room which is also one of the last actual funeral home organ lofts in New England but the fact is the availability of accomplished organist is diminished to a certain degree and so we have taken advantage of some of those more modern opportunities for background music we have for instance music that might be Catholic and orientation Baptist and orientation we have a Hindu music we have Greek monks chanting there is supposed to be some medicinal properties to listen in to music that has a soothing capability now we've come up to the third floor because I guess a logical question would be where do these caskets come from and you guys have presentation rooms where you feature all kinds of caskets and urns I guess what amazes me is how much personalization is involved you guys can really get specific it's the evolution of funeral service all right this is what has come through our generation is choosing to personalize customize the memorialization and you know rather than just a generic cookie-cutter casket they can come in and they can choose and you say geez dad love golf or mom love golf you know it's all emotional and if it helps emotionally helps them get through a bad time then all of that all the bit

Channel: The Day

Views: 4,385,961

Rating: 4.5110908 out of 5

Keywords: funeral

Id: osR1uSnJ854

Length: 6min 0sec (360 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 10 2009