Just came in to say this is a fascinating thread and to thank Coffinman for his intelligent and considerate responses so far - it’s been educational and enlightening!
I had to look up how much hotter the flames would have to be to accomplish this.
Calcium Phosphate - Boiling point 1484 °C
Typical cremation temperature - between 1400 to 1800 °F (760–980 °C).
It would take a lot more energy to vaporize the remaining cremains. And since calcium phosphate is a useful component of both fertilizer and animal feed, going that extra bit probably isn’t necessary. If you see vaporization as a kind of air burial, there are alternatives.
Ever get a corpse that wasn’t dead? Like someone went into a coma with a very faint heartbeat and he springs to life right when you’re about to start embalming?
That’s odd, when I attended the funeral of a Rabbi friend, folks insisted that I *wear *a hat. It was a very small hat, but a hat never-the-less.
So you are calling a yarmulke a hat? That’s a whoosh, right?
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A yarmulke IS a type of hat. A very specific type of hat, but definitely in that category.
At my grandmother’s funeral the rabbi had a stack of them for male gentiles who showed up without head cover as the services were Jewish and at a Jewish cemetery. Also a few scarves for female gentiles. As it happens, all the gentiles showed up with acceptable head coverings but my dad - you know, grandma’s son raised in an Orthodox home - showed up bareheaded, so he got one of the rabbi’s yarmulkes. No, dad was never that good at being Jewish…
Which just goes to show how cultural practices differ. It’s all good, as long as people make some effort to be both respectful and understanding.
I have heard anecdotally that this has happened in the past, but to be honest the way declaration of death is conducted here in California makes this sort of thing next to impossible.
I did once have an experience which tripped me out when I first started. I was in the back hallway of the morgue preparing a set of remains for a service next to a sheet covered newly arrived body on a gurney that was awaiting processing for embalming. I swore I heard a loud sigh come from the gurney, so I immediately started checking the unembalmed remains for a pulse but could not find one. The body was still warm, having only been gone a few hours. When I couldn’t find a pulse I went running out to the office and told folks that I thought we had a live person in our morgue on the gurney. One of the senior staff members calmly checked for vitals and then explained that occasionally newly deceased bodies can appear to sigh or exhale because they are releasing gas. I was embarrassed for my overreaction and I got teased for it for several months- staff would giggle and say “new arrival, Steve. You might want to check them to see if they are alive or dead”
One thing that I neglected to mention - a few years back there were a lot of stories and presentations at death care industry functions regarding the so-called “liquid cremations” as an greener alternative to traditional cremations. In this case the remains are rendered into a greenish liquid from which easily crushed bone fragments can be retained and placed into a conventional urn. This process is rather rare offer in the USA, and I see that one of the few funeral homes to offer this was asked to stop this practice.
Re: post #267, I’ve heard that bodies can sit straight up. Any truth?
Soylent Green IS people. I knew it.
I too have heard this anecdotally, but never met anyone in the industry who experienced this first hand. The closest I got to this was an unembalmed body on a gurney in my morgue releasing air and gas which sounded like the corpse was gasping and sighing. This freaked me out since I was relatively new to the industry at the time and caused me to run around my office asking for help since I assumed we had a live person who was declared improperly, but some of the senior staff in the office were quick to set me straight.
A colleague of mine from another motruary shared with me today that years ago a the hand of a fresh corpse clamped around his wrist and grabbed him while he was working on it in the morgue. Said it had to do with post mortem muscular contractions and, understandably it freaked him out big time. This was a first for me hearing about something like this happening. Had this happened to me when I first started I likely would have been too creeped out to continue in this field.
That is an old friend-of-a-friend story. Usually the deceased is a hunchback, or an elderly person hunched over with arthritis.
Here is Ray Stevens’ version of the story: Sittin’ Up With the Dead
I was able to locate a rather gruesome photograph of a corpse on the morgue table that appears to be pushing itself up due to rigor mortis.
Trigger warning and NSFW:
While I cannot vouch for the authenticity of this photograph, I can see how this could occur if the corpse was left in a face down position, which I will say is an unusual position for a set of remains to be placed.
I missed this earlier and I only have three words–HOLY FREAKIN’ SHIT!
Someone should have slipped the Sunday Funnies under his head and snapped a pic.
I am guessing that he may have passed away laying face down, possibly while reading and likely was left in that position for a few hours following death and rigor probably set and caused the muscular contractions that lifted his head and torso so that he appears to be resting on his elbows. Poor dude