# Are hospital morgues staffed 24 hours?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-staffed-24-hours/725787
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 21, 2015, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-staffed-24-hours/725787 "2015-07-21T15:50:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2015, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-staffed-24-hours/725787/41 "2015-07-24T02:17:21Z")
> [@kunilou](#):
>
> Where I worked, the nurses.
Yep. Same here. We transport the child and his/her family if that’s what they want. We do the paperwork and allow the family some time with their recently deceased child. We also open the morgue in the days that follow if the family need some more time. The social worker usually attends as well.
Nowhere I’ve worked calls it ‘graveyard’ shift. ‘Bloody nightshift’ is its usual moniker.
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### Author:  [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2015, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-staffed-24-hours/725787/42 "2015-07-24T03:22:42Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> My SO, an RN, says they don’t use the term ‘graveyard shift’ in hospitals – for obvious reasons. I’ll bet they do though, just not within earshot of the supervisors.
I worked the graveyard shift in a hospital.
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### Author:  [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2015, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-staffed-24-hours/725787/43 "2015-07-24T03:27:41Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> Dad used it all the time. He was FAA, and before that, Navy.
>
> ETA: He also used ‘midwatch’.
>
> .
The mid watch is the 12-4 watch. A grave shift is the 12:00 midnight to 8:00 Am shift.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2015, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-staffed-24-hours/725787/44 "2015-07-24T22:32:56Z")
Fresh out of high school in West Texas, I worked the graveyard shift in a convenience store for a while. That’s what the business called it verbally, although I don’t recall if it was called that in writing in any official documents.
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2015, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-staffed-24-hours/725787/45 "2015-07-24T22:44:24Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> This thread from a bit over a year ago may have some good info for the OP: [In a hospital, how are dead bodies moved from the room to the morgue? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=724462)
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#):
>
> FTR, the thread mentioned above, [In a hospital, how are dead bodies moved from the room to the morgue?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=17413087). Also see[Death and removal of the body](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=636819). And [How long can a person survive in a morgue fridge?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=695636). This last one tells us the fridge is 2-4deg C., but without cite. OP was posting there for the first time too.
So, you’re both citing zombie threads? 😃
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2015, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-staffed-24-hours/725787/46 "2015-07-25T02:05:58Z")
> [@ralph124c](#):
>
> So what about those stories you read of, of "dead’ people coming back to life in the morgue? Does this really happen, or is it all a mistake (some over worked intern mistakenly declaring some one dead), who actually has a pulse. Has any corpse ever sat up and began to talk?
[For ralph](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/17/woman-wakes-up-in-morgue-the-lazarus-phenomenon-surfaces-more-than-you-think/) (whose Google skills are moribund).
Sometimes I’m tempted, when writing up an autopsy report, to say that “the patient’s pupils were reactive to light and accommodation”, just to see if anyone is paying attention. :eek:
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2015, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hospital-morgues-staffed-24-hours/725787/47 "2015-07-25T02:28:48Z")
> [@Snnipe\_70E](#):
>
> The mid watch is the 12-4 watch. A grave shift is the 12:00 midnight to 8:00 Am shift.
In the Navy a watch is four hours. After 20 years in the Navy, midnight-to-eight becomes figuratively a ‘midwatch’.
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