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How Autopsies Work · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know?
0:08
Speaker 1: From House toff works dot Com. I would say, hey,
0:21
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast, but I'm not going to yet
0:23
Speaker 1: because this is add on to what you're about to hear. Right, Chuck,
0:27
Speaker 1: let's be quiet because we don't want our our normal
0:30
Speaker 1: selves to hear us. Oh gotcha? I wonder why we
0:32
Speaker 1: were talking about that. Do you understand now, Chuck? Did
0:36
Speaker 1: you know what this is? Do you know why we're doing?
0:38
Speaker 1: What is? It is pretty freaking exciting, what Josh, we
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Speaker 1: are about to release in just a few seconds show?
0:48
Speaker 1: Remember four zero zero? That's huge. There should be some
0:53
Speaker 1: sort of fancaire. I hope there was just now I
0:55
Speaker 1: think so there are four episodes of stuff you should know.
0:59
Speaker 1: That's a big deal to did I can't even like
1:02
Speaker 1: when people ask the requisite a, what's your favorite show?
1:06
Speaker 1: I can't even just melt my brain now, I can't
1:07
Speaker 1: even think of it. I used to have stock answers,
1:10
Speaker 1: and now there's so many I look through and I
1:12
Speaker 1: don't even remember some of them, Like what we did
1:14
Speaker 1: that we talked about that? I'm with you crazy. Well,
1:17
Speaker 1: let's let's hope we can do another four shows exactly.
1:22
Speaker 1: Here's two years four more. Congratulations Buddy, right back, and Jerry,
1:27
Speaker 1: thank you. You've been here since day one, aside from
1:29
Speaker 1: a few guest episodes where you're lazy, Jerry, congratulations to you.
1:36
Speaker 1: Pretty much been Jerry the whole time. Um, what what
1:39
Speaker 1: would it be without the three of us? You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
1:43
Speaker 1: it would be crud? Yeah. Um well, thank you, dear
1:47
Speaker 1: listener for listening to all four hundred. You know some
1:49
Speaker 1: of you out there have because we would not be
1:51
Speaker 1: around if you never listened in the first place. We
1:54
Speaker 1: would have done four shows. Yea. And yeah, those of
1:56
Speaker 1: you who have listened to one or two or just
1:58
Speaker 1: discovered us or whatever, this is your one. Welcome to
2:01
Speaker 1: the Dullhouse. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
2:27
Speaker 1: With me is Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and that makes
2:30
Speaker 1: this stuff you should know, dead and rowdy. I just
2:33
Speaker 1: made you shudder before we pressed record. I'm out it
2:36
Speaker 1: was an actual one. No, I thought you did that well, yeah,
2:40
Speaker 1: but I was doing in response to your face. You
2:42
Speaker 1: made that face, but you didn't make annoy were you
2:44
Speaker 1: doing it on my behalf of exactly. Okank you so much.
2:48
Speaker 1: I feel so cared for so chuckers. Yes, Um, this
2:55
Speaker 1: is a little kind of a boo podcast. This this
2:59
Speaker 1: has got to complete our suite on death. You would
3:02
Speaker 1: think so, but it doesn't. No. No, we still have
3:06
Speaker 1: how dying works left. Um, we still have um, what
3:11
Speaker 1: it's like to be dead. We've got a lot of
3:14
Speaker 1: stuff we haven't even touched, like what happens to the
3:17
Speaker 1: nails after that. So, um, we're getting closer that we're
3:22
Speaker 1: creating a larger body of work. Um, and this one,
3:27
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a big one. You predicted. I
3:29
Speaker 1: think I agree with you. It's detailed too. Yeah. It
3:34
Speaker 1: was based in part on the an interview with the
3:37
Speaker 1: Fulton County Deputy Medical Examiner, who knows what he's talking about. Hey,
3:42
Speaker 1: if you're in Fulton County, you're gonna be investigating a
3:45
Speaker 1: lot of foul play. Yeah. Atlanta and Detroit used to
3:50
Speaker 1: go back and forth for the murder. Capital of the
3:52
Speaker 1: US used to shoot out and then bullets a false
3:57
Speaker 1: somewhere in the middle. DC is up there too, I think, Yeah,
4:00
Speaker 1: do you see us up there? I don't. I think
4:01
Speaker 1: Atlanta's out of the running the last several years. I
4:05
Speaker 1: know it lost this place. We just don't murder like
4:08
Speaker 1: what used to. But I mean, like the numbers all
4:11
Speaker 1: pale in comparison to like Warez. It's like, do you
4:14
Speaker 1: think that's a big number? How about fifteen times that
4:17
Speaker 1: you know? Um, so chuck. Have you ever seen an autopsy,
4:23
Speaker 1: like a real deal film of one? No? I saw that,
4:29
Speaker 1: but that was that was quite fake. Have you not
4:31
Speaker 1: seen Faces of Death? The original? I never saw that
4:34
Speaker 1: there's an autopsy in there, and um, I can't remember
4:37
Speaker 1: if we talked about it during the Exploitation Films episode,
4:41
Speaker 1: but um, part of Faces of Death was real and
4:45
Speaker 1: some was staged and fake, but the autopsy was definitely real.
4:50
Speaker 1: And you can tell after reading this, it's like, oh yeah,
4:52
Speaker 1: they do pull the skin flat from the top of
4:55
Speaker 1: the scalp down over the face and under the chest.
4:58
Speaker 1: I felt really bad for the human base reading this
5:02
Speaker 1: because it's liable. Yeah, it's well, and it's always got
5:04
Speaker 1: some flap of skin folded over it. Yeah, like, I
5:08
Speaker 1: don't know, we don't want to look at that, so
5:09
Speaker 1: let's just fold the chest over it. Exactly what what
5:13
Speaker 1: is this what's that called the scalp scalp? Yeah, but
5:17
Speaker 1: say skull, Sorry, the skulls under the scalp. No I
5:19
Speaker 1: knew that. That's the fact of the podcast. Um, So,
5:23
Speaker 1: why why do people do autopsis, Chuck? It's not just
5:26
Speaker 1: so ghouls can be paid to do their thing. Now,
5:30
Speaker 1: there's actual reasons for an autopsy, which, by the way,
5:32
Speaker 1: it doesn't say it's in the article, but autopsy is
5:36
Speaker 1: Greek based on the Greek autopsia, which means to see
5:39
Speaker 1: for one's own eyes. Yeah. Yeah, Do they want to
5:44
Speaker 1: see for oneself how somebody died? Yes, the manner of
5:48
Speaker 1: death and time of death, which we'll get into. But
5:51
Speaker 1: I think there are five certain types of death one five,
5:57
Speaker 1: uh six that that they require an autopsy if you
6:02
Speaker 1: die by injury, delayed complication of injury, poisoning, infectious complications,
6:09
Speaker 1: foul play, or if you die with no attending positions,
6:12
Speaker 1: So that those are the reasons that they were requested autopsy, right,
6:16
Speaker 1: And if the cops come out or somebody the funeral
6:19
Speaker 1: home comes out and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, this guy
6:22
Speaker 1: may have been poisoned or he's injured and he died,
6:26
Speaker 1: we need to call the corner the medical examiner. They're
6:29
Speaker 1: going to perform an autopsy, and there's um, there's a
6:34
Speaker 1: couple of types of autopsies. There's two really, and the
6:38
Speaker 1: one where the cops are involved, where the medical examination
6:41
Speaker 1: is carried out on behalf of law enforcement. That's a
6:44
Speaker 1: UM well a medical examination of forensic autopsy a k a.
6:49
Speaker 1: The the sexiest of all autopsies, because that's what you're
6:52
Speaker 1: gonna see in movies and on TV quite often, unless
6:55
Speaker 1: it's like contagion or something right exactly so, in a
6:59
Speaker 1: move like um, oh contagion, Uh, the any autopsy you
7:05
Speaker 1: performed is going to be a clinical autopsy, which is
7:08
Speaker 1: usually performed by doctors who are trying to figure out
7:10
Speaker 1: what the heck happened, what went wrong in the treatment,
7:14
Speaker 1: how a disease took its course, and they're basically documenting
7:18
Speaker 1: maybe an interesting case through autopsy for the medical literature
7:23
Speaker 1: and for well, in the case of a contagion, even
7:26
Speaker 1: though I haven't seen it, for the good of humanity,
7:29
Speaker 1: immediate good of humanity, if there's some fast spreading disease
7:33
Speaker 1: or something, or there's faulty cribs. Um autopsies were instrumental
7:38
Speaker 1: in finding getting to the bottom of like product recalls
7:42
Speaker 1: like faulty cribs that killing kids. I didn't think about that. Yeah,
7:46
Speaker 1: that's one of the benefits of autopsies. Yeah, makes total sense.
7:49
Speaker 1: So those are the two kinds of autopsies you got
7:51
Speaker 1: for forensic and clinical. And basically we're gonna be talking
7:54
Speaker 1: mainly about um law enforcement autopsies. So when we say autopsy,
7:58
Speaker 1: for the rest of the podcast, we're too much talking
8:00
Speaker 1: about a forensic autopsy. One that's trying to figure out
8:03
Speaker 1: if somebody died uh naturally, accidentally or someone's hand, yeah,
8:10
Speaker 1: foul play, um at their own hand, suicide or undetermined.
8:15
Speaker 1: Those are the five legally defined manners of death. I
8:17
Speaker 1: didn't see very sleepy on here. I thought those six
8:21
Speaker 1: that would be naturally where they go to cut into
8:23
Speaker 1: you and you're like, oh, you wake up and they're like, oh,
8:26
Speaker 1: he's not dead. Right, Well, there's no manner of death
8:29
Speaker 1: then yet. Uh, that's gonna be done by a forensic
8:33
Speaker 1: pathologist most often, or a medical examiner or a coroner,
8:38
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll get into that towards the end, right, Yeah,
8:43
Speaker 1: about the difference. Yeah, Well, ideally it's going to be
8:46
Speaker 1: carried out by a forensic pathologist, which is somebody who's
8:49
Speaker 1: trained to perform autopsies looking for a mode of death. Right,
8:54
Speaker 1: quite often a doctor, but not always almost always. Yeah,
8:57
Speaker 1: to be a forensic pathologist, you have to be a doctor.
9:00
Speaker 1: Oh really Yeah. To be a medical examiner, you have
9:06
Speaker 1: to be a doctor. You don't have to be a
9:08
Speaker 1: forensic pathologist to be a medical examiner. Well, and you
9:12
Speaker 1: ideally should be uh accredited, but that's not always the
9:15
Speaker 1: case either. You want to have to be Um. So
9:19
Speaker 1: let's say you're forensic pathologist or a corner you're going
9:23
Speaker 1: to try to assign one of these one of these
9:28
Speaker 1: manners of death to a dead person. Yeah, like Quincy, Yeah, exactly. Um,
9:33
Speaker 1: and what you're gonna do is, uh, you're gonna take
9:36
Speaker 1: not just the findings from your autopsy, but you're going
9:39
Speaker 1: to put them in a context with say a police
9:42
Speaker 1: report or something. Right, Yeah, but you're not cops. Like
9:45
Speaker 1: TV as usual overstates it as far as how involved
9:50
Speaker 1: the medical examiner is, like as far as being on
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Speaker 1: the scene and collecting DNA and all that stuff. It's
9:56
Speaker 1: it's not usually the case as Mr. What's his name,
9:59
Speaker 1: doctor U Kaisel or keisel, let's go with the let's
10:03
Speaker 1: go the k um. So you take all this stuff
10:09
Speaker 1: like so so, for example, Robert Valdez who wrote this article,
10:13
Speaker 1: UM says, so there's there's head trauma on a dead
10:17
Speaker 1: man or a dead woman. Doesn't quite make sense. You know,
10:22
Speaker 1: is it a homicide? Is it's probably not a suicide.
10:26
Speaker 1: But is it accidental? Um? You know, it's definitely injury, right,
10:31
Speaker 1: which is why somebody called the corner or the medical
10:33
Speaker 1: examiner in the first place. But the exactly whether it
10:37
Speaker 1: was at someone else's hand or accidental is still up
10:41
Speaker 1: for debate. Well, you take those head that head trauma,
10:44
Speaker 1: those head wounds, and you put them together with the
10:46
Speaker 1: police report that said that there was an iced over
10:49
Speaker 1: ladder laying beside the dead body when it was found.
10:53
Speaker 1: There's probably an accident. The corner of the medical examiner
10:56
Speaker 1: is going to say, this guy's probably it was probably
11:00
Speaker 1: just slipping off the ladder, like the gutters are half
11:02
Speaker 1: cleaned out, right, He has like a big hunk of
11:06
Speaker 1: leaves in his hand, and he didn't write someone's name
11:10
Speaker 1: in blood on the sidewalk. It was um. And then
11:16
Speaker 1: you know, if you have the the old that old
11:18
Speaker 1: yarn about a gunshot wounded the head. Is it a homicide? Well,
11:22
Speaker 1: I don't know. Is there a burn pattern really close by?
11:25
Speaker 1: Is there gunshot residue on the on the hand, the
11:29
Speaker 1: dominant hand of the victim, that's probably a suicide. Yeah.
11:33
Speaker 1: And as we'll point out here in a minute, one
11:34
Speaker 1: of the steps uh which I didn't even realize this,
11:37
Speaker 1: you always see him ziping them up in the body bag,
11:39
Speaker 1: but actually bagged the hands and in a in a
11:43
Speaker 1: suspected suicie homicide, Yeah, because you bagged the hands because
11:46
Speaker 1: you want to just make sure that you can check
11:48
Speaker 1: under the fingernails to make sure that there's not like
11:51
Speaker 1: skin cells from the guy who attacked you under your
11:54
Speaker 1: under your fingernails. People get real grabby when they're being murdered. So, um,
12:00
Speaker 1: so we apparently I didn't realize this, but ductor keisel,
12:03
Speaker 1: we don't have keisel, right. Yeah, he pointed out that.
12:06
Speaker 1: So he gave an example of how it's not really
12:09
Speaker 1: that clear cut right with the gunshot wound. Yeah, it
12:14
Speaker 1: was interesting to say, you say I shot you in
12:16
Speaker 1: the head. That would be very sad thirty years ago,
12:19
Speaker 1: and um, you survived, but you developed the seizure disorder.
12:24
Speaker 1: So you're fine, but you you have seizures. Thirty years later,
12:28
Speaker 1: today you keel over dead from your seizure disorder. That
12:33
Speaker 1: death would be ruled a homicide because you developed a
12:36
Speaker 1: seizure disorder as the result of a gunshot wound, which
12:39
Speaker 1: is an unnatural event that I inflicted on you. So
12:42
Speaker 1: even though Emily can't come after me and be like,
12:45
Speaker 1: I'm gonna assue you, she could be like, I'm gonna
12:47
Speaker 1: kill you. She couldn't sue me because the apparently the
12:52
Speaker 1: um the courts don't allow that after thirty years of survival,
12:56
Speaker 1: but the the corner or the medical examiner would rule
12:59
Speaker 1: it a homicide. Yeah, it's not, like he points out,
13:01
Speaker 1: it's not their call to say, like, you gotta go
13:04
Speaker 1: after and prosecute this dude, or Emily can sue you,
13:06
Speaker 1: or she can bring you flowers and candy. They're just saying,
13:09
Speaker 1: this is how it died, how it went exactly supposedly
13:12
Speaker 1: in an ideal vacuum world, we should say that's right.
13:16
Speaker 1: So you were talking about the difference between medical examiners
13:20
Speaker 1: and corners. You want to you want to give up? Yeah,
13:22
Speaker 1: from what I understand, and especially by reading that article
13:25
Speaker 1: that you sent. Um corners are sort of the more
13:33
Speaker 1: part time although they can do it full time, but
13:35
Speaker 1: a lot of times it's in these underfunded counties and
13:38
Speaker 1: counties where they don't have a lot of crime. Uh,
13:41
Speaker 1: there will be a corner because there's only what did
13:45
Speaker 1: that articles say, like four to professional medical examiners in
13:50
Speaker 1: the United States. Yeah, that's crazy. There's plenty of medical examiners,
13:54
Speaker 1: but they're not forensic pathologists, which in this case is
13:56
Speaker 1: like the most highly qualified person in that field. Right,
14:01
Speaker 1: So that's the main difference. It all depends on the
14:04
Speaker 1: county where you live. There's different laws as you know,
14:07
Speaker 1: as far as what they require. But if you're not
14:11
Speaker 1: in a big city, you may not have the resources
14:13
Speaker 1: or the equipment, or you may be so far out
14:16
Speaker 1: of town that you know, it's hard to get people there,
14:18
Speaker 1: so you might just have a corner driving up. That
14:21
Speaker 1: was is also your contractor for your house as the
14:25
Speaker 1: case was setting? Where was that? Was that in Louisiana
14:28
Speaker 1: or Texas? Was in Washington? Washington? Yeah? Uh, there's sixteen
14:32
Speaker 1: hundred counties in the US, and there's like thirty counties
14:36
Speaker 1: total and six hundred of them used the corner system,
14:39
Speaker 1: and you know medical examiners, an appointed physician. UH. County
14:44
Speaker 1: coroner is an elected official who in most cases just
14:47
Speaker 1: has to have a high school degree for UM to
14:49
Speaker 1: be qualified for the position. Sometimes it's the sheriff. Saw
14:53
Speaker 1: in that one county it was the local county prosecutor
14:57
Speaker 1: is also the corner. Yeah, you're not supposed to do
15:00
Speaker 1: that because you want an impartial person ruling on the
15:03
Speaker 1: manner of death, especially say if like it's a police death.
15:06
Speaker 1: You know, the police killed somebody. You don't want the
15:09
Speaker 1: sheriff judging whether or not his deputies were to blame.
15:13
Speaker 1: Looks like suicide to me, exactly, Well that happened. That
15:16
Speaker 1: was a pretty good example in UM, New Orleans of
15:20
Speaker 1: there's the corner. There has been corner for like thirty
15:23
Speaker 1: five years. He um he's very very cozy with law enforcement,
15:29
Speaker 1: or has been accused of it many times. And there
15:31
Speaker 1: was a guy who stole one cops gun and shot
15:34
Speaker 1: another cop to death and started to get away and
15:37
Speaker 1: was finally caught. And when he was caught and brought
15:40
Speaker 1: in finally he died supposedly after being given iodine for
15:45
Speaker 1: X rays, but really he died because he was beaten
15:48
Speaker 1: to death. He had like a bruce testicle and like, um,
15:51
Speaker 1: all these cracked ribs in the corner. Still this day
15:54
Speaker 1: refuses to rule it a homicide. It's like a movie plot.
15:57
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, Richard gear gets called in to
15:59
Speaker 1: invest to gate and then things get sexy exactly because
16:04
Speaker 1: of course the cop is you know, Angelina Jolie. Is
16:09
Speaker 1: that how it goes down all eighty pounds of her.
16:11
Speaker 1: He's one tough cop. Um. So there there are problems
16:14
Speaker 1: with the Corners thing. And um that you read that
16:17
Speaker 1: article too from PBS Frontline. That was awesome, by the way,
16:20
Speaker 1: people should read that. Yeah, I can't remember what it
16:22
Speaker 1: was called. Um, I got it right here. Okay, good.
16:25
Speaker 1: It is called the Real c S I Colin, How
16:29
Speaker 1: America's patchwork system of death investigations puts the living at risk.
16:33
Speaker 1: It's a it's a very eye opening um article. Yeah,
16:37
Speaker 1: where basically they say that this the members of this
16:41
Speaker 1: field quite literally bury their mistakes. There's some really bad
16:46
Speaker 1: people who are really bad at their jobs out there
16:48
Speaker 1: doing it. But the problem is it's like if you
16:50
Speaker 1: have a coroner who doesn't know what he's looking at
16:52
Speaker 1: and rules something a homicide. Then there's somebody who's going
16:55
Speaker 1: to be put on trial eventually. Well, exactly right or
16:58
Speaker 1: wrong if you have medical examiners who don't know what
17:01
Speaker 1: they're doing or do a terrible job. One guy, um
17:05
Speaker 1: in Tennessee, was accused of his dog eating some human
17:10
Speaker 1: remains because it was allowed to roam free in the
17:12
Speaker 1: examination room. You can't do that. Another guy supposedly allegedly
17:17
Speaker 1: was drunk while he was doing like thousands of these things. Um,
17:21
Speaker 1: that's probably the only way he could get through it
17:23
Speaker 1: because he wasn't a real forensic pathologist. Right. But there's
17:28
Speaker 1: a huge there's this huge battle going on between you
17:31
Speaker 1: know how qualified you have to be. It's the medical
17:34
Speaker 1: establishment trying to take over this lucrative field er. Well,
17:38
Speaker 1: it's not so lucrative, because that's one reason it said
17:41
Speaker 1: in the article that there's a shortage is because they
17:43
Speaker 1: get paid on average less than a doctor would. So
17:48
Speaker 1: if you're gonna go through medical school plus I think
17:51
Speaker 1: an extra year of training for this to get paid
17:53
Speaker 1: less money. And the one guy pointed out, so like
17:55
Speaker 1: you really do this because of love for your fellow man. Yes,
18:00
Speaker 1: that was the guy who refused to rule the homicide. Yeah, yeah,
18:05
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means in but also i'll
18:07
Speaker 1: bet their UM, I'll bet their malpractice insurance. It's like
18:10
Speaker 1: next to nothing compared to a regular physicians. Yeah, because
18:15
Speaker 1: you're using Well, we'll get to that um. So the
18:18
Speaker 1: coroner also is responsible for identifying a body, notifying the
18:22
Speaker 1: next of king's billy, collecting uh and returning any personal
18:26
Speaker 1: belongings that's found on the body, which I'm sure in
18:29
Speaker 1: rural counties that you know, there's probably been more than
18:32
Speaker 1: one wallet go missing during that protest, maybe maybe not
18:35
Speaker 1: calling out corners, never trusted farmers, have you, um? And
18:39
Speaker 1: then signing the death certificate. And this kind of goes
18:42
Speaker 1: along with the origin of coroner, which is derived from
18:45
Speaker 1: the old English crowner. Yeah. I think Richard the lion
18:49
Speaker 1: Heart was when it first really came into effect, because
18:52
Speaker 1: he wanted I guess he wanted the money of dead people,
18:56
Speaker 1: so he would send out his crowner so to gather
18:58
Speaker 1: it up. Right, He's like a demo, and they would say, well,
19:01
Speaker 1: he died of of a wound from a sword, and
19:03
Speaker 1: then take his gold trinkets, yes, and return it to
19:07
Speaker 1: Richard yeah, exactly. And then apparently over time they were like, well,
19:11
Speaker 1: while you're out there, why don't you just start taking
19:15
Speaker 1: vital records and and let's make you like an official guy.
19:19
Speaker 1: And that's how the crowner became the coroner. It's right.
19:21
Speaker 1: And Dr Dr Diesel even knew that. Dr Keisel because
19:27
Speaker 1: he's the one in the article that even pointed that out.
19:29
Speaker 1: And I thought, well, that's good. He knows about the
19:30
Speaker 1: history of his profession. He seemed like a pretty sharp guy,
19:34
Speaker 1: I imagine. So so, Chuck, we've been beating around the
19:37
Speaker 1: bush quite long enough. Do you feel like it's time
19:40
Speaker 1: for people to put down their lunches and us to
19:43
Speaker 1: go through the autopsy procedure step by step? Yes, I
19:48
Speaker 1: think that's a great idea. Step one, as I have
19:51
Speaker 1: it is a body bag or an evident cheat got
19:54
Speaker 1: to use a new, brand new body bag and a
19:56
Speaker 1: brand new evident sheet. I don't want to reuse this, No,
19:59
Speaker 1: I didn't. That was worth pointing out. But it wouln't
20:02
Speaker 1: even bring myself the highlight. I know he was thorough though,
20:05
Speaker 1: so you definitely want to use new ones because you
20:07
Speaker 1: don't want, obviously any contamination. The body is moved by
20:12
Speaker 1: a deaner. Uh, make about thirty seven grand a year.
20:16
Speaker 1: I look that up on average. If you're a morgue
20:19
Speaker 1: atendent or a deaner and that is a d I
20:21
Speaker 1: E N E R. And they will take the body
20:24
Speaker 1: in the bag or sheet to the examination sweet and
20:27
Speaker 1: it stays in the bag, uh for a little while
20:32
Speaker 1: at first at least. Isn't that right? I didn't run
20:36
Speaker 1: across that. Yeah, because if you have to, uh, you
20:40
Speaker 1: can unseal the bag, but you have to take note
20:41
Speaker 1: of the clothing and oh yeah, the cloth they just
20:45
Speaker 1: put the body. Well that if they do put it
20:49
Speaker 1: in the fridge. If if there is some delay, like
20:53
Speaker 1: if the bodies are stacked up or something, or I
20:55
Speaker 1: would imagine to let rigger stop. Sure right to cease exactly,
21:02
Speaker 1: very good shock. But you leave it in the bag
21:05
Speaker 1: at first. You want to take note of the clothing
21:07
Speaker 1: after unzipping it and the position of the clothing. It's
21:09
Speaker 1: very important because the guy had let's say his turtle
21:13
Speaker 1: night pulled up over his nose. He might have died
21:15
Speaker 1: by some stinky chemical in the air. That's good. You
21:19
Speaker 1: paint a heck of a picture. I imagine a Frenchman
21:24
Speaker 1: with a little mustache. Uh, you want to begin with
21:28
Speaker 1: the this is the external examination is obviously what comes first.
21:32
Speaker 1: You don't want to go cutting into the body. You
21:34
Speaker 1: want to look at hair samples, fingernails, gunshot residue, fibers,
21:38
Speaker 1: paint chips, anything on the body, hairs that that is
21:42
Speaker 1: worth noting. Right in the bag itself or the evidence
21:45
Speaker 1: sheet is kept as evidence as well, Yeah, because stuff
21:48
Speaker 1: might have stuck to it. Um, that's gross. Yeah, it
21:52
Speaker 1: is kind of gross, but it happened, you know. Uh.
21:55
Speaker 1: You also want to keep the body in the bag,
21:58
Speaker 1: Uh to X ray as well. Yeah, X ray or
22:01
Speaker 1: cat scan the body in the bag. I didn't think
22:03
Speaker 1: about that, No, but it's true. I mean things get
22:05
Speaker 1: lost in the bank. You want to make sure they're there. True,
22:08
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be able to see through the human being
22:11
Speaker 1: find maybe a bullet or something that's missing. It's in
22:14
Speaker 1: the bag. Uh, it says in here. Sometimes I'll use
22:17
Speaker 1: a UV radiation special technique to basically make secretions glow
22:23
Speaker 1: in the dark or become fluorescent, like, hey, this guy's
22:27
Speaker 1: got some sort of spot him on his turtleneck as well,
22:29
Speaker 1: and it's glowing now and I see that right, Well,
22:32
Speaker 1: you'd have to use the correct reagent to make spot
22:34
Speaker 1: him glow under a black light. But I'm sure it's
22:37
Speaker 1: out there, right, Yeah, sure you can get it into
22:39
Speaker 1: Spencer Gifts. Um, so after you've made this, uh this
22:42
Speaker 1: initial external examinations, time to get the body nude out
22:46
Speaker 1: of the body bag. That's right, we want to weigh it. Yeah,
22:49
Speaker 1: you don't clean the body up to No, not yet,
22:51
Speaker 1: very important. You gotta leave it as is. So you
22:53
Speaker 1: make your first examination with the body fully clothed, make
22:57
Speaker 1: a second examination with the body undressed but still bloody, right,
23:03
Speaker 1: and then after that, um, you clean the body up
23:06
Speaker 1: and make a third external examination. Well, the diner will
23:10
Speaker 1: clean the body up while you go have coffee, insert
23:13
Speaker 1: the internet. You're like Rusty Gene clean that body off.
23:17
Speaker 1: And then finally after that, the cleaned naked body is
23:23
Speaker 1: placed on the autopsy table, which is I mean, everybody's
23:28
Speaker 1: seen one of these. It's a big stainless steel table
23:30
Speaker 1: with raised sides and it's slanted towards the middle with
23:34
Speaker 1: why would it be st and stuff? Well, there's a
23:36
Speaker 1: lot of blood and fluids that come out when you
23:38
Speaker 1: cut into a body that they probably figure that out
23:40
Speaker 1: after prototype one that was exactly to allow sense. Uh.
23:50
Speaker 1: So yeah, you, um, you have the body prepared. Also,
23:53
Speaker 1: I forgot, I'm sorry. You want to note the characteristics
23:56
Speaker 1: of the body, race, height, tricks, scar tattoos, all that
24:00
Speaker 1: kind of color age, and all the time they're looking
24:03
Speaker 1: for things like wounds, modes of injury, anything that could
24:08
Speaker 1: kind of give them an idea of what, uh this
24:11
Speaker 1: person died from. Um. And then the body's on the
24:15
Speaker 1: examination table, chuck, and it's time for well, it's time
24:19
Speaker 1: for the internal exam. Well, yeah, it's time for something
24:22
Speaker 1: called the body block. Which I tried to get a
24:24
Speaker 1: picture of this but I could not find one. Imagine
24:27
Speaker 1: it's just a I guarantee it's a yoga block. Do
24:30
Speaker 1: you think. I'm sure maybe that's the exact same thing.
24:34
Speaker 1: So they put this body block under the back. At first,
24:37
Speaker 1: the body's face up and that will be trude the
24:40
Speaker 1: chest and have the arms kind of fall down to
24:42
Speaker 1: your chest is sticking out, which makes it much easier
24:45
Speaker 1: to get into. Yeah, your chest is raised up. Yep. Okay,
24:50
Speaker 1: So um, Dr Bryant, would you like to make the
24:53
Speaker 1: first decision? Sure, Josh, I'm gonna take that scalpel or
24:58
Speaker 1: that kitchen knife, but probably the a scalpel initially, although
25:01
Speaker 1: they use all sorts of stuff. We'll find out, uh,
25:04
Speaker 1: and I will make a large and deep, y shaped
25:07
Speaker 1: decision and incision from shoulder to shoulder, meat at the
25:11
Speaker 1: breast bone, and then down to the pubic bone. So
25:14
Speaker 1: you've got a big wine in your chest. You fold
25:17
Speaker 1: that front flap up over the face, and I guess
25:19
Speaker 1: the other ones just fold over to the side. Well,
25:21
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not that easy. You have to kind
25:23
Speaker 1: of pull it back and dissect with the scalpel the
25:25
Speaker 1: connective tissue as you pull back. But then yes, that
25:29
Speaker 1: that V shaped chest flap goes back over the face
25:34
Speaker 1: and then what uh the next step you're um, right
25:39
Speaker 1: now you've got the rib cage and neck muscles all exposed.
25:43
Speaker 1: Also probably pulled open the stomach flaps too. Yeah, the
25:47
Speaker 1: figure those are just off to the side because you
25:50
Speaker 1: you know where else are they gonna go? Um, the
25:53
Speaker 1: organs are exposed. At this point, You're gonna make a
25:56
Speaker 1: series of cuts. You're gonna detach. Your goal here is
25:58
Speaker 1: to get the organs out in a big unit it
26:01
Speaker 1: and to wait, wait, you didn't take the rib cage
26:03
Speaker 1: off yet. Oh I didn't. I'm sorry. You're gonna You're
26:05
Speaker 1: gonna cut the rib cage off using everything from pruning
26:08
Speaker 1: shears that you would use in your backyard, the special
26:11
Speaker 1: rib cage cutters what it was called rib cutters, of
26:16
Speaker 1: course they are. Yeah, uh so okay, now the ribs gone,
26:19
Speaker 1: your organs are exposed. You're gonna make cuts that detach
26:23
Speaker 1: the larynx, esophagus, arteries, and ligaments. Then you're going to
26:27
Speaker 1: detach it from the spinal cord. Then you're gonna detach
26:30
Speaker 1: everything from the bladder and the rectum. And then after that,
26:34
Speaker 1: your whole organ set is able to be lifted out
26:37
Speaker 1: as one whole, as one whole unit. Pretty cool, Pretty cool.
26:43
Speaker 1: So um, now it's kind of time to get busy
26:46
Speaker 1: on the organs. You want to take slices of them.
26:50
Speaker 1: Want to weigh him first though, Oh yeah, you want
26:52
Speaker 1: to weigh You want to note their appearance, character color, yeah,
26:57
Speaker 1: if they're funny. Um, And then you're gonna to take
27:00
Speaker 1: some slices uh thin enough to be um viewed under
27:04
Speaker 1: a microscope, right, because that's part of this too. It's
27:07
Speaker 1: not all fun in games like you have to look
27:09
Speaker 1: into microscopes and stuff like that. Um. And then also
27:14
Speaker 1: the star probably is the stomach. You're gonna cut the
27:19
Speaker 1: stomach open and examine the gastric contents because that will
27:22
Speaker 1: tell you something about the time of death. It will
27:24
Speaker 1: see or costs of death. Maybe possibly there's a there's
27:29
Speaker 1: a small watch in your stomach, right, they maybe swallowed
27:33
Speaker 1: it and choked or something like that. Yeah, you never know. Uh.
27:37
Speaker 1: And also they're probably going to examine the heart for
27:39
Speaker 1: cardiac bands. Um. They're gonna bisect major arteries to see
27:44
Speaker 1: if there's any kind of blockage. Maybe it was a
27:46
Speaker 1: heart attack, maybe there's some sort of poison, who knows.
27:50
Speaker 1: But basically they're just gonna go through all of your
27:52
Speaker 1: internal organs one by one. Uh. So you've got the
27:56
Speaker 1: chest cavity cut open, but the heads just sit in
27:59
Speaker 1: there like what are you gonna do? What are you
28:01
Speaker 1: gonna do? Now, Well, he's gotta flap a face over
28:03
Speaker 1: the skin, skin over the face, I am. So the
28:11
Speaker 1: body would say, hey, what's up with my brain? And
28:13
Speaker 1: then the the examiner will say, hold tight, I'm getting
28:16
Speaker 1: right to that, sir. And then you're going to use
28:20
Speaker 1: that scalpel to make incisions um from behind one ear,
28:25
Speaker 1: across the forehead to the other ear, all the way
28:27
Speaker 1: around like a candleoup, let's say, or let's say a grapefruit.
28:32
Speaker 1: That's what you typically split into and uh, you divide
28:36
Speaker 1: that cut as well, so it's uh you have two
28:39
Speaker 1: separate flaps, one going over the face again, yeah, and
28:43
Speaker 1: then fold that rear flap back over the neck. And
28:46
Speaker 1: then you've got an exposed skull. And they use a
28:49
Speaker 1: special kind of stall called the striker saw um, which
28:53
Speaker 1: is capable of cutting through the skull but doesn't pierce
28:56
Speaker 1: the brain. It's pretty cool. Yeah, Is that what they
28:59
Speaker 1: use when they take casts off? Probably is? Isn't that
29:03
Speaker 1: same deal? We'll cut through your cast, but not through
29:04
Speaker 1: your skin, I would imagine. I mean it looks like this.
29:06
Speaker 1: Have you ever had a cast? I have it, But yeah,
29:09
Speaker 1: I bet you that's may not be the exact same thing, though,
29:12
Speaker 1: um blow at any rate. They use that. And then
29:14
Speaker 1: they use a claude hammer, not the kind of you
29:17
Speaker 1: think it's a it's a hammer or at the bottom
29:19
Speaker 1: of a handle there's a claw. They use that to
29:22
Speaker 1: pride the cap of the skull off. Right. If you
29:26
Speaker 1: once you get the skull cap off. If you look
29:29
Speaker 1: inside of it, you're going to see that the dura,
29:32
Speaker 1: which connects the brain to the skull, and by the way,
29:35
Speaker 1: which shrinks when you have a hangover UM, is stuck
29:40
Speaker 1: to the inside of the skull cap. Right, So if
29:42
Speaker 1: a shrunken they could determine if he was hung over
29:44
Speaker 1: when he died, they could UM. They'll also cut away
29:47
Speaker 1: the tentorium, which connects the um, UH, the cerebellum, and
29:52
Speaker 1: the occipital lobes right, and all of a sudden, voila,
29:56
Speaker 1: you have an exposed brain where once you detach it
29:59
Speaker 1: from the UH spinal cord, you are absolutely ready for
30:04
Speaker 1: it to just be lifted right out of the skull.
30:07
Speaker 1: And again, this whole time you're taking notes on your
30:10
Speaker 1: little voice recorder or you're telling Rusty the deaner to
30:14
Speaker 1: write that down. And so it's not just UM, you're
30:18
Speaker 1: not just taking all this stuff out willingly. You're you're observing,
30:20
Speaker 1: noting anything you see, UM. And then what do you do.
30:25
Speaker 1: You're done. It's been four hours. You did a really
30:27
Speaker 1: detailed examination inside and out, and you have this body
30:32
Speaker 1: that's just all kinds of messed up. Now, But the
30:35
Speaker 1: families like, we've got a funeral tomorrow. We can't do this.
30:40
Speaker 1: We shouldn't even be here seeing this. Put uncle ted
30:43
Speaker 1: back together, and the the corner or the medical example,
30:49
Speaker 1: and will say, just chill out. Way of procedures for this.
30:52
Speaker 1: So the internal organs either go back into the chess
30:56
Speaker 1: cavity or the abdomen. Why would they do that really
31:00
Speaker 1: of just purposes? Oh really? Yeah, interesting, I didn't think
31:03
Speaker 1: about that. Or more typically they're incinerated, or in the
31:06
Speaker 1: case of really horrible medical examiners, they're fed to their dogs,
31:10
Speaker 1: right yeah, or or the bodily fluids are pumped back
31:15
Speaker 1: into the body because their draining system is clogged up. Yeah.
31:20
Speaker 1: In Massachusetts State Medical Examiner's office, Um, the chest flaps
31:27
Speaker 1: are closed and so back together, the skull caps placed
31:30
Speaker 1: back on and then held in place by sewing the
31:32
Speaker 1: scalp back. And any decent corners should make their incisions
31:36
Speaker 1: along the hairline or at least in well enough precise
31:41
Speaker 1: enough that um, it should be discreete once sewn back together.
31:46
Speaker 1: And you're doing this with a hagadorn needle, which is uh,
31:51
Speaker 1: apparently when you're sowing human skin, he can't just use
31:53
Speaker 1: an ordinary sewing needle and you gotta go Jamee Gum
31:57
Speaker 1: style and get this beefy skin needle. M what nice.
32:05
Speaker 1: It's just great all over the place. Thank you. Um. So,
32:09
Speaker 1: like I said, it takes four hours by Dr Kesel's estimate.
32:13
Speaker 1: I love that he said that includes paperwork. Yeah. Well,
32:15
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, like the initial examination, then writing
32:18
Speaker 1: it up and all that. He said for a homicide
32:21
Speaker 1: it could take four to six hours. Um. And what's
32:25
Speaker 1: what's behind? I guess probably the lengthier ones are examining
32:30
Speaker 1: the wounds because you can't just say, well, here are
32:33
Speaker 1: the bullet holes. So this guy, you know, died from
32:37
Speaker 1: being shot. What do you want from me? Shut up?
32:38
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a corner. Um. Today you have to
32:42
Speaker 1: trace the path of each bullet hole and show where
32:45
Speaker 1: it went from entrance to exeter, from entrance to where
32:48
Speaker 1: it stopped. Yeah. And and in the case of any
32:52
Speaker 1: sort of police action, and especially I mean if there's
32:56
Speaker 1: any sort of a shootout with like three or four
32:58
Speaker 1: guys and like ten cops in there's people end up
33:01
Speaker 1: dead all over the place. It's a bad day for
33:03
Speaker 1: a corner. It's a bad day for a corner, because
33:05
Speaker 1: you got to determine, he said. Uh. Keisel said that
33:08
Speaker 1: you know what they want to know very specifically, especially
33:10
Speaker 1: in the case of police shootings, is all right, this
33:13
Speaker 1: bullet in this guy's shoulder, where did who's gun did
33:15
Speaker 1: it come from? And this other bullet in his chest?
33:18
Speaker 1: Whose bullet did that come from? And see that guy,
33:20
Speaker 1: He's got five different kinds of bullets from these twelve cops,
33:24
Speaker 1: and we we need to know where each of them
33:26
Speaker 1: came from. He gets really convoluted, right, and same with
33:29
Speaker 1: um blunt force trauma. Uh. They he has to determine,
33:32
Speaker 1: not just like well, something really heavy killed this person,
33:35
Speaker 1: has to be this thing is probably what killed this person, right,
33:41
Speaker 1: because say that they police find a bloody hammer at
33:44
Speaker 1: the scene, but the medical examiner says it was a
33:47
Speaker 1: hockey stick likely that killed this person. That's not going
33:50
Speaker 1: to help in the prosecution or vice versa. You don't
33:54
Speaker 1: want somebody, you know, who has their prints on a
33:57
Speaker 1: hammer that the cops are trying to use against them
34:00
Speaker 1: to be used wrongly when it was actually that hockey
34:03
Speaker 1: stick that killed that person. True, that poor poor person.
34:07
Speaker 1: And while you can get some schooling for this stuff,
34:09
Speaker 1: I think I think it said a year extra h
34:13
Speaker 1: A lot of it is just experience seeing the stuff like, hey,
34:18
Speaker 1: I've seen that before. That's definitely a hockey stick. Yeah,
34:20
Speaker 1: you can go from Rusty the deaner to Rusty the
34:23
Speaker 1: medical examiner, well, Rusty the coroner um or Rusty the
34:27
Speaker 1: medical examiner without having to go to med school. Like
34:30
Speaker 1: the head of the um Washington d c Emmy's office
34:35
Speaker 1: is not a physician. That's crazy or not a forensic
34:38
Speaker 1: he's not a forensic pathologist. I'm sorry. I don't want
34:41
Speaker 1: to sound like I'm disrespecting corners. I'm sure a lot
34:43
Speaker 1: of them do great work, so h I hope it
34:46
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like we're slagging corners in the whole Hornet's
34:49
Speaker 1: nest man. It is. It's a big thing going on
34:51
Speaker 1: right now. So these are You know, if the cops
34:54
Speaker 1: UH or the police department is doing some kind of investigation,
34:57
Speaker 1: you can get a private autopsy if Uncle Ted dies
35:01
Speaker 1: seemingly naturally, but we just want to know what killed him.
35:05
Speaker 1: Was it his artery blockage or was it his awful
35:08
Speaker 1: liver because he was a raging alcoholic, Like we just
35:11
Speaker 1: want to know. You can hire it out and uh
35:15
Speaker 1: who wrote this? Was it the grabstor now Robert Valdez
35:18
Speaker 1: Valdez und I saw thirty five and up. Yeah, so
35:23
Speaker 1: you spend a little change on that, you are, Um,
35:25
Speaker 1: and it's especially frustrating if you're doing a secondary Um oh,
35:29
Speaker 1: I bet basically getting a second opinion via autopsy because
35:33
Speaker 1: you don't think the first one worked. How do you
35:35
Speaker 1: do that? Like everything's already been prodded and yeah, it's
35:38
Speaker 1: gonna be incomplete. But um, apparently there's this guy in
35:42
Speaker 1: New Orleans under the main coroner who's like whose work
35:46
Speaker 1: is routinely followed up by second autopsies, and apparently his
35:50
Speaker 1: are easier because um the secondary autopsy. The secondary medical examiners,
35:56
Speaker 1: um say, like he just like half autopsies. Some people though,
36:01
Speaker 1: surprising cage and corner Yeah wow yeah, uh so, Josh,
36:05
Speaker 1: we mentioned a couple of tools like the haggard or
36:08
Speaker 1: needle and the bone saw. Uh they use something called
36:13
Speaker 1: in and taratone. I look these up there. The scissors
36:17
Speaker 1: used to open intestines. It's sort of like one one
36:21
Speaker 1: side of the scissor is longer than the other and
36:23
Speaker 1: it has a little little hook type thing on that end.
36:27
Speaker 1: It looked baffling to me, but apparently that's what you need. Um,
36:32
Speaker 1: you talked about the hammer with a hook and the
36:34
Speaker 1: rip cutter scalpel obviously regular old scissors. Gotta have a
36:39
Speaker 1: skull chisel if you want to pry that that skull open,
36:42
Speaker 1: or that hammer with the hook, hammer with a hook
36:45
Speaker 1: forceps too, forceps to pick up the heavier organs. And uh,
36:50
Speaker 1: Keisel goes on to elaborate a little bit and say,
36:52
Speaker 1: you know what, You put the words medical examine or
36:56
Speaker 1: knife in front of it, and you're gonna be paying
36:58
Speaker 1: triple buddy. Here's a little hit from your own from
37:00
Speaker 1: your uncle Kiesel. You go to the hardware store and
37:03
Speaker 1: you get yourself a hack saw or some pruning shears,
37:07
Speaker 1: or you go to the restaurant supply store and get
37:09
Speaker 1: a nice cheap chef's NiFe, and you're good to go.
37:13
Speaker 1: Because again, they don't really have to worry about the
37:16
Speaker 1: person coming out of the procedure. On the other end,
37:18
Speaker 1: alive still is the big challenge for physicians, and not
37:22
Speaker 1: to say they do a hack job, but they don't
37:24
Speaker 1: have to worry about the precision obviously of a surgeon. Right, So, um,
37:30
Speaker 1: there's a lot of guessing involved in this, Like if
37:34
Speaker 1: you think about it, the ladder with ice next to
37:38
Speaker 1: the frozen body with head trauma, um that it's a
37:43
Speaker 1: suggestion that that's how that guy died, or the melted
37:46
Speaker 1: puddle with the old riddle, Yeah, that's a great one. Um,
37:50
Speaker 1: these are all guesses, ultimately, is Dr Keisel puts it, like,
37:54
Speaker 1: you have to have somebody videotaped dying next to the
37:58
Speaker 1: time at clock to ever establish a certain time of death.
38:00
Speaker 1: And even as our understanding of death as a process
38:03
Speaker 1: rather than as a moment um increases, even that wouldn't
38:07
Speaker 1: necessarily give you anything. So basically they're they're trying to
38:11
Speaker 1: um make an educated guess at the manner of death.
38:15
Speaker 1: But also the time of death is a big one.
38:17
Speaker 1: And we mentioned um, gastric contents, stomach contents. Why would
38:21
Speaker 1: those be important? Well, because if there's a cheeseburger that
38:25
Speaker 1: still looks like a cheeseburger, and that means you died
38:29
Speaker 1: within the amount of time it takes for that cheeseburger
38:31
Speaker 1: to become kind nice, it's still bullus. But let's say
38:37
Speaker 1: that you found also in that person's apartment receipt from
38:41
Speaker 1: McDonald's that had the time stamp on the Put that together,
38:44
Speaker 1: you're gonna get an even clear time of death. And
38:47
Speaker 1: they work under something called the time of death certainty principle,
38:50
Speaker 1: which is um, the laughing stock of principles. Well, it's
38:55
Speaker 1: it's about as simple as it gets. If you know
38:58
Speaker 1: for sure when the person was us known to be alive,
39:01
Speaker 1: Say he was in the bar and he left, I
39:04
Speaker 1: saw him, he was loaded. Uh, and then you know
39:07
Speaker 1: for sure when he was found dead. A found him
39:09
Speaker 1: at ten thirty frozen, well maybe not frozen yet, but
39:14
Speaker 1: in the back alley he was dead as a stump.
39:16
Speaker 1: Then you know for sure that he died sometime between.
39:20
Speaker 1: And then they try to narrow it down from there.
39:22
Speaker 1: That's the time of death certainty principle. That really makes sense. Yeah. Um,
39:26
Speaker 1: and there's we've talked before about Rigor Morris. We made
39:29
Speaker 1: an excellent podcast on Rigor Mortris. We've talked about um
39:32
Speaker 1: lividity um from the Body Farm podcast. UM, the vitreous humor,
39:38
Speaker 1: that corny is getting cloudy, that happens after death. Um.
39:43
Speaker 1: And then again the gastric contents, bot flies, all that stuff,
39:47
Speaker 1: full bladder bottle flies not bot flies, full bladder. I
39:50
Speaker 1: never really thought about that. That makes sense. So if
39:53
Speaker 1: you have like full bladder of urine or a lot
39:55
Speaker 1: of poop near your w rectum ready to come out,
40:00
Speaker 1: and I don't know what that tells you. Besides, stand back,
40:02
Speaker 1: they didn't be they didn't be your boot before they died.
40:06
Speaker 1: But I'm sure it could help an investigation. Um. And
40:08
Speaker 1: then also they'll use some kind of non scientific ones,
40:11
Speaker 1: like you know, if somebody's possibly been dead for a
40:14
Speaker 1: few days, you know what day is their TV guide
40:18
Speaker 1: sitting next to them open to That makes sense, It
40:21
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. Is it on NBC? Did
40:24
Speaker 1: they have dirty rock highlighted in their TV guide? Quite possibly?
40:30
Speaker 1: They died laughing. So have we got uh, well, we
40:36
Speaker 1: should mention that a lot of those variables that happened
40:38
Speaker 1: to the body, they can they can change according to
40:43
Speaker 1: like how hot or cold it is, and what other
40:46
Speaker 1: chemicals you might have had in your blood stream. So
40:48
Speaker 1: it's not super se hide that's gonna that's gonna delay
40:52
Speaker 1: the onset of these things. Um, you got anything else? Well,
40:56
Speaker 1: I mean I guess we could follow up a little
40:58
Speaker 1: bit more on that article. Um, apparently just the system
41:02
Speaker 1: in the United States is sort of a big mess
41:05
Speaker 1: right now as a whole. And they you know, you
41:08
Speaker 1: told a couple of the stories. Um but Tim Brown
41:13
Speaker 1: a construction manager in Marlborough County, South Carolina. It's a
41:16
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand all your part time job to be the
41:19
Speaker 1: county corner. And I'm sure he does a find job
41:22
Speaker 1: and hopefully there's not a lot of mouth peasants going
41:24
Speaker 1: on there, you know, where he's not investigating like these
41:27
Speaker 1: big homicides. But um, but the well, the problem is is,
41:31
Speaker 1: you know, if he is investigating a homicide, the state
41:34
Speaker 1: will generally provide a medical examiner to carry out an autopsy.
41:37
Speaker 1: They're not gonna be like, well, you're the coroner. Sorry,
41:40
Speaker 1: here's a scalpel. They'll they'll say, you can send this
41:43
Speaker 1: body to the state medical examiner and they'll give you
41:45
Speaker 1: an idea of you know, what you're looking at. But
41:48
Speaker 1: it's also up to the coroner to decide whether or
41:50
Speaker 1: not an autopsy should be performed. Oh it is, yeah, Okay,
41:55
Speaker 1: the cops can't call for it. I'm sure other people can,
41:57
Speaker 1: but I think ultimately it's the corner ner who is
42:01
Speaker 1: able to decide or rule on that right, And we
42:05
Speaker 1: did mention that not all doctors have even passed the test.
42:08
Speaker 1: I think MPR found that a hundred and five throughout
42:12
Speaker 1: the country have not passed the exam, and some aren't
42:16
Speaker 1: going to retake it. They're just like, well, I have
42:18
Speaker 1: failed it and I'm still totally employed. It's my career. Bagel, bagel. Yeah.
42:24
Speaker 1: L Another part of the problem also is there's like
42:26
Speaker 1: four to five officially qualified medical examiners who are forensic pathologists,
42:35
Speaker 1: and it's about half of what's needed by estimates for
42:38
Speaker 1: the US, right, so they're underfunded, overworked, overworked. The National
42:43
Speaker 1: Association of Medical Examiners recommends no more than two d
42:46
Speaker 1: and fifty UM autopsies per per medical examiner per year
42:52
Speaker 1: and UM, I mean that's easily exceeded by a lot
42:55
Speaker 1: of people these days. In Oklahoma stopped performing autopsies on
43:00
Speaker 1: anybody over forty and UM, anybody uh suspected of being
43:07
Speaker 1: a suicide. The Magic Massachusetts seemed like a big mess.
43:11
Speaker 1: I think they said they had lost five bodies. They
43:16
Speaker 1: incinerated one before the autopsy even took place. Yeah, it
43:21
Speaker 1: was that the state where they got the two people
43:23
Speaker 1: mixed up, you know, that was that was a death
43:25
Speaker 1: in a fire that was a different one. And then
43:27
Speaker 1: there was one case where they pulled the body out
43:30
Speaker 1: of a lake and uh, well he drowned and they
43:33
Speaker 1: didn't notice the bullet once in his neck. Yeah, and
43:36
Speaker 1: suburban Detroit. Yeah, it sounds like a gross point. And
43:39
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I don't know. I'm just guessing. So, yeah,
43:43
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. I don't either. I think it's
43:46
Speaker 1: a noble profession to get into if you've got the
43:47
Speaker 1: stomach for it. Yeah, and uh, you don't like your
43:51
Speaker 1: patients talking smack back to you, right, you don't like
43:55
Speaker 1: that to spend a lot of magazine subscriptions. Don't have
43:58
Speaker 1: to worry about your bedside manner does uh? Uh? Your
44:03
Speaker 1: dog is free to come in and out apparently, I guess.
44:06
Speaker 1: So that's just so crazy to um. This one was
44:09
Speaker 1: surprising to me, Like remember when we did the bail system. Yeah,
44:13
Speaker 1: that was surprising. It's like this seems like this innocuous,
44:16
Speaker 1: normal thing, and then all of a sudden you start
44:18
Speaker 1: looking into You're like, whoa, there's a lot of problems
44:21
Speaker 1: with this system. So you can great if you want
44:25
Speaker 1: to know more about autopsies, um, including a lot of
44:30
Speaker 1: photos of dead bodies with sheets draped over him. Um,
44:33
Speaker 1: you can find that by typing autopsy A U T
44:36
Speaker 1: O P S I E S in the search bar
44:39
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, which means the time for listenings.
44:44
Speaker 1: Hold on Josh before listener mail. We want to announce
44:46
Speaker 1: our south By Southwest goings On year. We will be
44:51
Speaker 1: podcasting this year live from three thirty to four thirty
44:55
Speaker 1: on Sunday, March eleven. And uh, we don't know the
44:58
Speaker 1: location yet. I'm hoping it's a Driscal hotel again. Yeah. Uh,
45:04
Speaker 1: and if you're a badgeholder, please come out and see
45:06
Speaker 1: his podcast live. There'll be a lot of fun. And
45:08
Speaker 1: if you're not in town and you can't make it,
45:10
Speaker 1: we will release the live podcast so you'll join in
45:13
Speaker 1: on the fun. Yeah, Posthumes. Yeah, like if you never
45:15
Speaker 1: leave the state of Kansas. Uh, Monday the following day,
45:19
Speaker 1: March twelve, we're gonna be throwing a party. And we're
45:22
Speaker 1: not quite firm on the details yet, but there will
45:25
Speaker 1: be likely some live music and some live comedy and
45:30
Speaker 1: US and some other very and when I say very
45:33
Speaker 1: special treats, you're really gonna want to be there for
45:35
Speaker 1: this one? Yes, you know it's gonna be a good party.
45:40
Speaker 1: It is. It's not like you're thinking though, I mean, like, Chuck,
45:44
Speaker 1: this means it's gonna be a good party. He's not
45:45
Speaker 1: like trying. There's no wink wink, nudge nudge for you
45:48
Speaker 1: call it. Not like an eyes wide chut kind of thing.
45:52
Speaker 1: Nothing like that. It's going to be a nice, wholesome,
45:55
Speaker 1: fun party exactly. Uh plus beer. Yes, so this will
45:59
Speaker 1: be count interacted by um dropping the clothes pin in
46:03
Speaker 1: the milk bottle. Games. That's right, okay, now, listener mail
46:08
Speaker 1: a listener mail, Josh. This is from Austin and I'm
46:11
Speaker 1: gonna call this health scare and you helped me through
46:14
Speaker 1: my health scare. Guys really appreciate the show. Went through
46:18
Speaker 1: a pretty rough health scare recently, and this is how
46:22
Speaker 1: I came to listen to your show. UM, I had
46:24
Speaker 1: some limp swelling along with other health issues, and my
46:28
Speaker 1: doctor says, you know, we should test for the worst
46:30
Speaker 1: of the worst. Um. It took a couple of weeks
46:33
Speaker 1: for this. Uh, these tests to get turned around, and
46:36
Speaker 1: it was pretty much the longest time of my life.
46:38
Speaker 1: To me, all signs pointed pointy to cancer. Couldn't believe it,
46:42
Speaker 1: sitting across from a doctor I didn't know telling me
46:44
Speaker 1: we need may need to look into a possible death sentence.
46:48
Speaker 1: And then my wife is at home, uh, losing both
46:52
Speaker 1: of her grandparents. It's Christmas time, and her parents are
46:55
Speaker 1: stuck in two different hospitals and had to cancel plans
46:58
Speaker 1: to business, all the while feuding with blood relatives who
47:01
Speaker 1: were taking advantage of the financials of their dying parents. Here,
47:05
Speaker 1: I was a new father of a spectacular baby, an
47:08
Speaker 1: incredible wife, overwhelmed with her own terrible issues, and I
47:11
Speaker 1: think I could soon be having to tell her I
47:13
Speaker 1: could be terminally ill having a new baby. She would
47:17
Speaker 1: often go to bed early, and I would be left
47:19
Speaker 1: to try and sleep with my own frightening imagination of
47:21
Speaker 1: what was going on my body. I started listening to
47:24
Speaker 1: your podcast to take my mind off of everything, and
47:26
Speaker 1: it was really the most calming distraction I could ever
47:28
Speaker 1: have wished for. Laughing, wondering, learning, and enjoying all of
47:32
Speaker 1: it until I would fall asleep. UH. Long story short,
47:35
Speaker 1: I got my scans back. My olymphatic system was normal,
47:39
Speaker 1: but my immune system was hyperactive, causing symptoms of note swelling, pain,
47:43
Speaker 1: and fatigue, weight loss. Great news compared to the mindset
47:47
Speaker 1: that I had of the worst thing imaginable. So he's okay,
47:52
Speaker 1: very lucky. But still I look forward to laying down
47:55
Speaker 1: early with my wife and now the two of us
47:58
Speaker 1: listened to you guys before we go to bed to
48:00
Speaker 1: help clear her mind in her tough turn. Wow, I
48:03
Speaker 1: can't believe we can do that. It is crazy. I'm
48:07
Speaker 1: sure they fall asleep six to eight minutes later, right,
48:10
Speaker 1: tops stops. So that's from Austin and Austin. We're very
48:14
Speaker 1: glad to hear about your diagnosis, my friend. Yeah, way
48:17
Speaker 1: to go, Austin. Um, that was great. It was a
48:20
Speaker 1: good wa Chuck, I think it? Uh it Austin. Thanks Austin,
48:24
Speaker 1: I already did, thank me, I did, did you? Thank Jerry?
48:28
Speaker 1: Thank you? Jerry? All right? Thank you to everybody for
48:31
Speaker 1: listening to this one. If you have an interesting story
48:36
Speaker 1: of how stuff you should have put you to sleep,
48:38
Speaker 1: or anything weird that it's done for you, we want
48:40
Speaker 1: to hear it. We like that kind of thing. You
48:42
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s Y s K Podcast.
48:45
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48:48
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48:50
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48:54
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49:00
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. To
49:03
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49:06
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49:09
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