burial vault company offered its flatbed truck, which was also equipped with a hydraulic crane, for use as a hearse. Following the funeral, the truck backed up to the chapel door, and two canvas-strap slings were slid underneath the casket. With little strain, the hydraulic lift gently swooped the casket onto the truck for its short journey to the cemetery.
I’m sure the sight of a white flatbed truck with a very large blue casket on the back leading a funeral procession down the street is not very common. When we arrived at the cemetery, I noticed that an inordinate number of gawkers had staked their claims near the grave site to catch a glimpse of what they had heard was a woman with a very large casket.
The bottom part of the vault was twice the normal size. The vault company also made concrete septic tanks, so with such a large grave opening, it had used an actual septic tank. For the first time, I witnessed a graveside ceremony standing next to a minister and a vault truck, with the honored decedent resting on the truck’s bed rather than on a lowering device above the open grave. With a twist of a lever, the casket was raised and gently cranked down to its final resting place.
Expensive caskets, such as those of sixteen-gauge steel, stainless steel, solid copper, and solid bronze, are sometimes urn shaped rather than rectangular. The urn shape is not only more attractive and more expensive but also serves a practical purpose for funeral directors. The extra inch or so of width inside allows us to position a heavier person in a more comfortable repose. With arms crossed across the abdomen, the elbows rest against the interior sides of the casket. Without that extra room, the deceased appears, and is, stuffed uncomfortably into the casket.
For decedents who weigh 350 pounds and up, oversize caskets must be used. A standard casket’s interior dimensions are twenty-three inches wide and seventy-eight inches long. Oversize caskets are available in widths of twenty-seven, thirty, and thirty-four inches. For the morbidly obese, custom-made caskets must be specially manufactured and are usually available in two or three days.
Many midrange and high-end caskets are equipped with a plastic tray underneath the dead body—a fail-safe liner. Embalming and other fluids frequently ooze from the deceased even if an expert and thorough embalming job has been done. Incisions that have not dried properly or have not been stitched tightly enough have also been known to leak, as does the site of the trocar, where embalmers insert a thin, tube-like instrument just above the belly button to aspirate the thoracic and abdominal cavities. Obese decedents present an additional problem in this regard because of the immense pressure on the abdomen from their weight and the weight of their arms and hands resting on the belly.
Many years ago I was approached at a visitation by the deceased’s spouse, whose husband was morbidly obese. She asked me to explain the moisture and the odd sound emanating from his casket. Luckily, he was dressed in a black sports shirt, which made the moisture less apparent to the public; however, as I held my ear to his belly, I could distinguish a bass sound similar to the opening notes of the 1960s gag song “Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport.” I asked those gathered to leave the room for a moment while I investigated further.
I pulled up his shirt and undershirt and discovered that the trocar hole, originally closed with a threaded plastic button, was belching liquid, probably propelled by a belly full of gas. His immense girth and the pressure of arms and hands had forced the liquids outward and onto his clothing. I replaced the trocar button, laid plastic sheeting against his bare belly, and sprayed Lysol around the casket. It sufficed until the visitation was over, and we were able to treat the problem later more thoroughly. I had not been the embalmer in this case; whoever was had obviously not treated the thoracic and abdominal organs.
Those who leave a larger body behind make a larger impression on us all.
CHAPTER FIVE
How do you snag the instant attention of a young class of mortuary students—or anyone else, for that matter? Just mention decapitation. Amazingly enough, it’s a far more common cause of death than people think, particularly in cases of industrial or auto accidents.
Back in the 1970s, my classmates and I listened attentively as our embalming instructor detailed the proper procedure for restoring a victim who had suffered the separation of head from body. He outlined for us the fine art of plunging a wooden mop handle, sharpened on both ends, down the spinal column and positioning the head back onto the shoulders by inserting the opposite end into the corresponding column section. The surrounding skin would then be sutured and the sutures waxed over.
In my more than thirty years as a licensed embalmer, I have used this technique only twice. Both victims, one male and one female, were passengers in an automobile that a fully loaded gravel truck had struck head-on. Apparently the leading edge of the car’s interior windshield frame had sliced off the heads of both occupants. Also, because of the tremendous force of the truck, the injuries were not cleanly administered. Jagged steel and glass had slammed into soft flesh, nearly obliterating all facial features. The only way to distinguish which head belonged to which body, in fact, was the long hair with feminine barrettes still affixed. I situated the heads back onto the corresponding shoulders, but otherwise there was far too much damage to complete a satisfactory restoration.
“They sure do good work here” is a comment I have been hearing more and more since I opened my own funeral home in 2001. My wife, who also works with me, did not quite understand its meaning at first. She assumed that people were congratulating us on our dignified, compassionate manner and the care we provided to client families and our visiting public. But actually,
Injecting a preservative chemical into the right femoral artery or right common carotid artery and opening the accompanying vein allows the blood to drain out of the body, thus allowing the chemical to react with and preserve or harden the surrounding tissues. Today, formaldehyde-based chemicals “fix,” or firm and preserve, human tissue to such a state as to allow for preparation of the body and the funeral to take place.
Without such treatment, the unforgettable odor of decomposition would greet funeral guests. Even biblical scholars made note of putrefaction: “Jesus lay in the tomb for three days; surely He stinketh.” Biblical accounts report that the dead Jesus was anointed with spices, no doubt to abate inevitable odors. And Shakespeare’s scene in which Romeo visits Juliet in her family’s mausoleum for one last kiss? No way. Since Juliet wasn’t really dead yet, she would have smelled just fine. But her grandparents’ remains would have knocked poor Romeo right out of his socks.
The Egyptians were the first true embalmers. The Egyptians removed the brain through the nostrils with a pointed tool and then inserted natron-soaked linens. They removed the abdominal organs and treated that area as well. Because those organs had a mystical value, they were stored in decorative jars with carved lids depicting certain animals. The body was then wrapped in linen sheets dipped in spices and natron, a preservative, and— voila!—a mummy.
This crude embalming process was successful, but there was another quality of the Egyptian process that resulted in the mummies we see today. The arid Egyptian climate lacked humidity, which speeds decomposition. Without humidity, the body simply dries up if left outdoors, whether or not any preservation is attempted.
By the early 1800s, time was of the essence in preparing the deceased. The dead needed to be buried in a hurry to avoid the inevitable ravages of decomposition. And until the 1860s, undertakers could offer only ice to retard the inevitable decomposition process. But early undertakers realized that if surrounding meat with ice, straw, and even salt successfully kept it fresh for a few days, then might such a procedure work with human bodies too? Ice was a precious commodity back in the day, so a premium price was added to the undertaker’s bill if a bereaved family desired to have their loved one viewed in the home or in the church. And so the first “cooling boards” were developed, crude wooden tables with a shallow metal pan to allow for ice to be placed under the deceased. Sometimes the deceased was viewed and eulogized while reposing on the cooling board, but on most occasions, the body was placed into a wood coffin after any ceremony and then buried. The cooling board was
