Embalming an autopsied body

every one so I had a request to do a video on embalming an autopsy body there really wasn't much in the prop room that I could show you actually more than I already have in the embalming room tour video so I figured I'd just do a quick video here was it home today and get those answers back to the requesters so there's not too much in the walkthrough process that's different in the beginning and so it's gonna just first touch on a few kind of points about what makes the process is different in terms of just for the embalmer I think embalming an autopsy body is a lot easier in some aspects and there's two key ones one the vessels are all exposed because the chest cavity is open the cranium is open and so you can get right to the source of the vessels you need to get to rather than making the incisions going through the fish trying to get to the vessels and not knowing what's going on everything's is pretty open so it doesn't make it a lot easier especially our top state bodies are usually kind of extreme circumstances where they've been dead for a while or it's an accident or it's a young person so it definitely in those situations let's take a car accident where you have a huge impact on the body and a lot of times it's the death has occurred because of internal bleeding or just almost like a whiplash of the heart just things that are not major like bleeding out type situation but where the circuitry within the body has been disrupted so if that body had not been autopsy and we would be injecting the embalming fluid and it not be going where we needed it to go but not knowing all why because we can't really see inside to where that circuitry is messed up essentially and so with the body autopsy didn't and kind of opened up we bypass where there's been that disruption usually and can go right to the right to the source where we need to put the fluid for the preservation now the second reason that I I think our top sees are easier is a little more emotionally which you would think would be a little backwards but I personally think it's easier to disconnect from what we're doing when the person's autopsy just because it's a lot more medical in that aspect it's just anatomy it's it's dealing with just parts almost rather than this whole person that we have to cut into I am bummed my niece when she died she was young and I found that because she was autopsy it was so much easier for me to be able to do it because I don't know I always say I don't know if I could have done it if she hadn't been autopsy of course I would have just done it because that's what I needed to do but because she was odd type see I didn't have to cut into her I got to put her back together and I think there was something very therapeutic in that so it was a lot easier being able to kind of restore somebody through that autopsy situation and I think that that's probably the case for a lot of people that they get to put somebody back together and and restore them and back to as much their natural state as can happen in that situation so with an autopsy there's a Y incision that goes from both shoulders to the sternum down to the pubic and so it's a huge y as large as the cavity can be opened up and then there's one around the cranium from behind the ear to behind the ear so all the organs inside are removed during the autopsy so some embalmers use the word kind of canoe because it literally is your body is a hollowed-out kind of cavity inside because there's nothing in there all of those organs are put into a bag and they're called viscera and that's off to the side you would take that out and set that off to the side when you begin and typically when you get a body there's a couple stitches holding the chest flaps and the stomach flaps closed and there's usually one or two stitches holding the the skull or the head skin closed and so just take those stitches out and open the person up so that we can do what we need to do we would do the eye caps the mouth closure all the same way and then we can kind of assess the situation and see where we want to start first and bummers always attack on autopsy body differently I think I sometimes will start injecting down the legs first and then while they're injecting I'll then do the eyes and the mouth closure just a multitask cuz that's what I do is I multitask I can't just do one thing I'm I gotta be kind of doing more than than one thing at a time but that's also the nice thing about an autopsy body is you can have to embalm errs kind of working simultaneously one injecting one doing maybe some work on the face if there's some extra work that needs to be done and so you can have more than one person working without getting any shoulders way and that's also it's it's really helpful a lot of times on an autopsy body so typically you would inject the six point down each leg down each arm and then up both sides of the because the circuitry in the head when inside the head or inside the skull where the bud goes up comes around and comes back down so it goes up the side and then down this side once it's gone through up in your skull and so that circuitry is typically broken and so it's called the Circle of Willis in there little tidbit and that's often broken so you do have to put fluid up both sides of the head to get an even distribution so I think it just some of that seems like it would take a little longer but because typically the vessels are exposed and they're right there and you can get to them pretty simply then sometimes it does go go quicker we do encounter once in a while pathologist or who has gone a little little happy kind of happy and so they've cut extra vessels or they've cut them way too far down and arteries are really elastic so if they're cut too far down they can recede back into the tissue and so like an artery the carotid artery but it's got to FAR's they're pulled down and cut it can snap back up in and we can't get to it or use it so then we have to find alternate methods of preservation so sometimes there's there's hurdles we encounter with that and and sometimes it's perfect I have also had pathologists who tie a little string to each one so they're easily identifiable and it goes super quick and it's awesome to get to have that let me see I've got some notes the so when they do the cranium they take the brain out like I had said and sometimes that Circle of Willis is caught so you do have to get up into there so you take the skin and you roll it forwards so the skin I'll come down over here from your Becker head down it's a really odd weird sight the first couple times and you feel like you're doing something crazy by it as part of the process and it's what needs to be done so that you can do what you have to do but it is I had to do some of that stuff the first couple of times so a lot of times the brain is not sent back I say a lot of times but I think I have encountered a lot of times if the brain does not come back with a body the brain is kept for further observation for observation for the research further testing and a letter will come to the family that lets them know that they have retained the brain and for further studies and yeah so and that will never tip eclis come back to the family it's just disposed of the so the skull is really light once the brains been removed the skulls really light and it'll often be packed in with cotton and before the skull is sutured back up and so the head is really light when you move it around when you're getting somebody dressed on stuff so it is kind of an odd feeling the neck also the the things on the neck because some of the tissue and some of the bone structure and vocal cords some of that's all removed and so the neck is kind of empty so a lot of times that needs to be packed with cotton or some paper towel something to kind of absorb and also to help shape the shape of a neck I've been to funerals and visitations where an autopsy was done and they did not shave in so you have this really flat weird thing going on and it's just not natural so it's definitely a key thing to do is to shape the neck and adam's apple' if it's a male so there is a higher chance of leaking with a body when when there's been an autopsy because you have so many more incisions so there's a lot of extra precaution taken with extra powder that's put in that absorbs moisture more suturing glue cotton just just extra layers of things that are done a lot of times the person will be put in some of that plastic type covering so like a plastic t-shirt type thing or plastic underwear plastic pants that go under the normal clothing that will catch any of the leaking if that occurs now the viscera that I had talked about earlier so all of the internal organs and then the brain if it is returned or in this plastic bag and I'm sure every embalmer I said at one point I don't know how all of this ever fit in that person like it just never seems to go back once you take it out kind of like you know after a person has a baby and they're like me and you could never put that baby back in if you needed to it's just you know doesn't seem humanly possible that things fit that way so you've got this large bag of internal organs and so embalmers will take one of two positions they either treat the viscera in the bag or they will bread the viscera so treating in the bag typically you put in straight cavity fluid now cavity fluid was the flue is the fluid that we used the trocar to put into the cavity when we did the typical embalming the non autopsy done bombing and that fluid stays in there treats that sometimes it's aspirated back out before viewing but it's straight fluid you don't dilute it at all so typically with it this row bag you just pour some of that in keep it tied up let it sit while you're embalming the body and then a lot of funeral directors will go in with the aspiration hose and suck out as much fluid as they can and then actually stuck out as much air and kind of vacuum pack in that viscera as tight as they can because that helps you to fit it back in the cavity of the person then you wrap the ribcage in cotton we do that because it's super sharp because it's been cut open and so when you put that bag back in you know nightmare is to have that bag rip and then you've got viscera and fluid and everything that was nice and dry and perfectly ready for that last step you've got to kind of go back in and clean up and retreat Andry bag and everything so you've got the once the Viceroy's back in and then you can stitch her up so sometimes that misro actually it will not fit back in there and so that this run the bag will be put in the foot of the casket and so it's buried with a person it's not trying to like be trickery or you know dishonest but it just doesn't fit back in so we have to kind of do what we can do so the cavity is filled with cotton and is packed and the viscera is put down by the feet of the person in the casket typically before they go to the cemetery so it's not sitting in there during the whole visitation but everything goes with the person it's just not exactly how somebody might think it was there's also some directors will do what they call breading the viscera where they actually take all of us or out of the bag and make sure it's coated in a formaldehyde powder and put back in the body all kind of treated and coated and so if it doesn't fit in the bag that's kind of the next step that some people will take rather than leaving it in the bag I'm in the bottom of the end the foot end of the casket and so there's two methods to treating the viscera and then suturing up where that it's a lot of a lot of sewing a lot of suturing especially sometimes they'll do I've only had a couple where they actually do a I know incision as well so that they can take out the part of the spine I've seen this in one case where somebody was walking down the side of the road and was hit in the rear by a vehicle and was killed and so they did some rear autopsy incisions to look at the bruising look at the damage that was done on the back side of the person as well always creates a lot more sewing for the embalmer but also a lot of leaking when the person's laying on their back and there's incisions back there a lot more leaking can happen so just a lot of extra precaution has to be taken for the viewing so um a few I guess downfalls I think I my personal opinion from what I've seen I think body's dry out a lot faster just because they've usually been in cold storage at the medical examiner's office or at the hospital and so there's a lot of that cold air circulating around the body and so they they just tend to dry out a little bit more and I think they also decompose a little faster because of that and so I you have to turn a little grayer have a distinct smell to them when somebody's been autopsy so I can always tell if I go to a visitation I can always tell if the person's been autopsy because if just their color and stuff and that's just because I I know that visual yeah but basically they're they're the same and in some aspects and and just structurally it's different so hopefully this answered some questions I am always open to answering questions I'm as brutally honest without try you know being having shock value I don't I'm not here to sensationalize what I do or what funeral directors and embalmers do and I love to talk about the business and educate people so give me more questions if you have them thanks guys

Channel: Kari the Mortician

Views: 208,548

Keywords: embalming, embalm, funeral home, burial, kari the mortician, accident, death care, funeral, autopsy, mortuary, funeral director

Id: MacBztGiDXs

Length: 17min 19sec (1039 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 23 2017