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?
Here’s an interesting story of someone being declared dead prematurely. In 1936, a jockey named Ralph Neves fell during a horse race in California. The horse fell on top of him and he was declared dead by the track physician. He was taken to a local hospital and toe-tagged. (It’s not clear if he was actually in the morgue.) He was administered a shot of adrenaline (although that suggests someone thought he still had a chance). He sat up, ran out of the hospital and took a cab back to the track, where people were praying for him. Must have freaked out the crowd.
Ditto that. Your post made me cry. 
It’s surprising that they have trouble covering the Graveyard Shift.
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.
On quiet nights in the emergency department, do they say, “Wow, it’s dead in here, isn’t it?”
I thought I had answered this question (or one similar to it) before:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17413087&postcount=47
Short answer, I worked in a small/medium sized hospital when I was 19. Our primary job was to distribute sterile supplies and drugs to the different departments. Our secondary job was to move bodies down to the morgue when someone died.
The secondary part of the job was not communicated to me before I was hired.
Our morgue never had anyone working in it. It was just a small, cold room with a few gurneys, where bodies waited before being sent elsewhere (usually a funeral home would come pick them up).
Also, bodies were wrapped by nurses before we picked them up.
So since most hospitals don’t seem to have 24 hour morgue attendents (deiners) who does the paperwork and attaches the identification to make sure the correct corpse gets the right id?
At my place, nurses do it.
Whatever. I just want to stop in for a cool one.
(Thanks, ThelmaLou and **Cub Mistress **. This part of maternal/OB care is often hidden and is a bit of a sub-specialty in the field. People really don’t know how frequently things go badly. I can’t say I enjoy this part of my work, but my facility does this part very well. We take a special training program.)
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a business use “graveyard”–they usually call it “overnight” or “night” shift.
Where I worked, the nurses.
Dad used it all the time. He was FAA, and before that, Navy.
ETA: He also used ‘midwatch’.
.
I got an interview with a morgue but didn’t go since I heard the hours were pretty stiff.
Businesses may not use it officially, but workers sure do. (My brother works the graveyard frequently.)
Printers, newspapermen, proofers: “lobster shift.” No idea why.
FTR, the thread mentioned above, In a hospital, how are dead bodies moved from the room to the morgue?. Also seeDeath and removal of the body. And How long can a person survive in a morgue fridge?. This last one tells us the fridge is 2-4deg C., but without cite. OP was posting there for the first time too.
Indeed. I’ve been hearing about the graveyard shift as far back as I can remember. Sure, it’s not an official term, but I had interviews as a young man where they directly called it the graveyard shift. It’s so common that a simple search comes up with a wiki disambiguation page that shows it as the title of two movies, an episode of SpongeBob, a radio program, and two video game missions.
From “How are bodies…” SD thread above, I found a post of my own also, on a quite more elaborate procedure: