Bodies fart and burp after death as they expel gases caused by decomposition. Bologna sandwich, anyone?
Mooney, is it possible that that’s what happened to the hairdresser in your story, and she only thought the corpse “sat up” because she was susceptible (maybe conditioned by seeing too many horror movies)?
Also, I believe there was an episode of St. Elsewhere wherein someone was working in the morgue and heard pounding from within one of the “drawers”.
According to my dad, it isn’t possible-he’s never seen it happen, and he doesn’t believe it.
Yes, trapped gasses can be expelled from a corpse. As originally posted by me in another thread. Sorry in advance to the moderators if this is a faux pas.
I am a nurse and was new at the facility. A patient had died, and I called the morgue to come pick up the body. Yes it was three am. Do you know you have to “bag them”? Ummm I didnt but I will get the care aide to help me.
We did the tags, the bag the whole bit. After the deceased was in the bag, there was a loud exhale. My care aide jumped and ran. I got out my stethoscope and with shakey hands again verified yes, he was dead… (trapped air in the lungs can sometimes escape the body when moved after death… a fine thing to know in fact but still creepy to hear it…after you’ve “bagged him”.
Okay so thats creepy but not strange. I go back to the desk and continue the paperwork. The morgue guys arrive and ask which room. I tell them, and hand them the bundle of forms they need. They come back… Didnt you know you have to bag and wrap her?
Her? Its a HIM, and yes he was bagged.
You had better come have a look.
So we go with the porter and find he went to the wrong room… 212 instead of 221… and the woman in that room is also dead. And obviously unwrapped. Hadnt been expected, she just went in her sleep around the same time as the expected one.
From that day on the care aide and I got the nervous giggles whenever we worked night shift together.
i believe hubby told me he once worked at a mortician’s, earning money for school. yes, major limb movements do occur after death. arms raise, legs jerk. i think it is quite possible that under the right conditions, a corpse could have enough muscle contraction to have it “sit up”. whether this is a function of gas build-up, muscle contraction, or a balanced combination of the two would be hard to say.
but i’m fairly sure he told me he witnessed a couple “lively” sessions during his employment. i’ll ask for details tonight.
lachesis
My brother in law was a mortician and told me that corpse movement happens sometimes if the body is not embalmed. When he first got into the business (IIRC) it was the family’s choice to embalm- not the law (as it is now here).
He said that sometimes un-embalmed bodies would twitch or turn but he had never seen one sit up. BTW, I asked him about this because I had seen an interview with Whoopi Goldberg where she told a story about being a hairdresser in a funeral home and having bodies move while she worked on them.
I’d ask him for more details, but he died. That was a weird funeral, let me tell ya… a bunch of morticians milling around discussing how pleased the deceased would have been with his lip color!!! :eek:
I’ve always doubted this one. I’m a hunter, and while I haven’t had a lot of experience with dead human bodies, I have been around a lot of dead animals, including large ones. After the initial death-throes thing, they never so much as twitch. Ever. You’d think that if it was that common I’d have seen it happen sometime.
Just my 2 cents.
//\etalhea|) - Don’t most hunters gut their ills as soon as possible to prevent contamination of the meat? A person (or animal, perhaps) left intact for several hours or days could build up gases from the multiplying bacteria that might account for the phenomenon.
StG
My high school psychology teacher told about this happening on his first day of gross anatomy in medical school. Scared the bejeezus out of him and he ultimately decided that being an M.D. wasn’t for him.
I have dealt with more dead bodies than I can remember ranging from just taking their last breath to dead more than eight hours. I have never seen one move but I have heard plenty groan when we rolled them over.
Once I was working with an aide and it was her first post mortem care. We rolled the body over to clean him up and wrap him when he let out a long loud moan. It really did sound like he was still alive. It unnerved me a bit but I thought the poor girl was going to pass out.
Another time we had wrapped a body and was waiting for it to be picked up. I walked in the room and I heard what sound like a person bound and gagged screaming “let me out of here, let me out of here now!” I nearly passed out, thinking for a second “Oh my God, is that person still alive?” Then I noticed the TV was on and there really was a bound and gagged person screaming “let me out”
Right, what The Mermaid said. No moving, but sometimes a noise which is quite like a groan, and a bit off putting, to say the least.
Now, however, I could see that if a coffin is shifted, that the dead body would flex forward- but this is due to that uncanny thing we like to call “gravity”.
Oh, and rotting human smells worse than anything you have ever smelled. Seal is about as bad.
Just wondering…
Isn’t there a show called Six Feet Under? I think it’s about a funeral home. Have they ever had an episode with the whole dead body sitting up thing?
Whoah!! Crazy! I was totally unaware this was a circulated story!
Y’see, I was told a very similar story as having happened to MY UNCLE (he wasn’t the one telling it). According to several family members, back when he used to be a sort of charter pilot courier guy, he was flying a body in a body bag, and due to some kind of pressure shift or something, the body sat up during flight, scaring the living (heh!) crap out said uncle.
I now begin to doubt the veracity of that story…
LC