In one of the hospitals where I work, deceased patients are transported to the morgue in a big black coffin as part of a Dixieland jazz procession. Everyone gets a big kick out of it.
I think that’s what happened with my dad. He was in a nursing home for several years, and there was a room called the “Federation Room” or somesuch. It was a type of lounge designed for visitors to wait in, if the patient was being toileted or showered or something. It also had a separate entrance (which I didn’t take much note of at the time).
When dad was on the way out, this room became what they apparently call the “Departure Lounge”, and his bed was wheeled in there. When he died, the internal door was closed, and the undertaker just came in his van and quietly whisked dad away through that outside entrance. The other patients would never have been any the wiser.
I love it! 
I’m also really enjoying the stories of people meeting over bodies.
The Dope is so great. I have gotten a lot of good info here and read some really funny stories.
Leo, your story wasn’t one of the funny ones. Dang, I’m sorry that happened.
Orthodox, was she? Or raised Orthodox?
Except for the fact the person in that room was never seen again.
Except for the fact, the person in that room was never seen again.
Most nursing homes have an unofficial death room. It gives the family privacy and spares the staff from answering awkward questions.
I hope they dress him in a box-back coat and put a $20 gold piece on his watch chain so the boys’ll know he died standin’ pat.
The death erections make this thread worth reading, for me.
Carry on.
Ward 81 is a bigger freakout.
The story about the stiff with a stiffy is apocryphal.
John Dillinger was reported to be well-hung and erect at death
Sadly for all concerned the bulge was his arm as a result of rigor mortis.
However, I have heard that hanged men often have an erection. Whether it’s a result of somthing like auto-asphyxiation, or a strange reaction to imminent death, or somthing boring like blood pooling I don’t know. Maybe a question for Cecil?
I once dated a medical student who told me of a well-hung cadaver the students were practicing on, and the poor stiff heh had died with a raging hard-on.
He was kidding you. Even if somebody did die with an erection, by the time a corpse gets to medical school dissecting room it has long been drained of blood.
That was a she. Not being gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that), I only ever dated women.
Recent observations.
In one hospital, the body is placed (I do not know if it was wrapped or sheeted) in a heavy canvas body bag which is placed on a regular hospital bed, and a spry elderly Chasidic man accompanied by a hospital Security officer hot foots it down a side corridor to an elevator. Security accompaniment is mandatory, to “ask people to step aside” from the elevator or to clear a path.
In another, the body is wrapped in a sheet, placed on a gurney. Over the body is a large rectangle simple frame with two cross-ribs, which are barely visible underneath a thick white plastic removable tarpaulin drawn over it and the body underneath. It looks like nothing else you see, sort of a coffin but double high (the top is about high chest level) and slightly wider at the foot, so the whole thing looks sort of whatever-hospital-stuff/delivery when pushed by a kindly orderly through the public corridors down and up from basement bedside, up staff-only elevator, loop-de-loop through staff classrooms as well as public clinics, back down to morgue on basement level in other building.
I’d been wanting to add the first observation, and get Opalescent with other questions of interest and answerable by the experts here, perhaps, with a new OP–“Ask the non-religious Jew who overnight arranged an ultra-Orthodox funeral”–for about 10 days. With difficulty–for I craved my virtual friends here–I waited for the end of Shiva–that funeral was for my wife’s mother–which ended on Sunday, when my Mother had a cerebral hemorrhage. The second observation comes from Tuesday morning, when I followed her body. Some fucking week, huh?
Holy crap, Leo Bloom, that sucks! I’m so sorry, man… 
Holy Hanna, Leo! Quite a week indeed, I’m so sorry for all of the loss you’re experiencing. My heart goes out to you and your families.
This is heartbreakingly sad. 
But I do understand the parents wanting to do this.
Leo, I’m so sorry for your loss, and the pain.
When you are ready to post your “Ask the non-religious Jew who overnight arranged an ultra-Orthodox funeral” thread, I will read it with much interest.
Wow, sorry to hear that, Leo.
Thanks to all. I was debating bumping the thread to say so. Mrs. Bloom was set to to write thank-yous to all who sent condolence cards, and I told her she didn’t have to and it was weird. But as usual I practice what I don’t preach.
I’m back in the SD thanks to chimps mastering fire. (If this thread zombies I will have no idea what this means.)