Most people get creeped out by a dead body. You who doesn't though? Funeral home workers. They're so used to being around corpses that almost nothing fazes them anymore. ALMOST NOTHING.
Even the dead like holding hands
“I used to work in tissue recovery. My least favorite part was prepping the donor for the recovery process, as it included shaving the arms and legs. Once we had a donor who was very freshly deceased. I held his hand to shave his arm, and his fingers curled around my hand as rigor mortis set in.”
The flickering lights…
“I’m a nurse, and the only place I’ve ever seen the lights flicker is just outside the morgue. They are fine almost all of the time but when we bring a body down the lights always flicker. Really creeps me out.”
Communicating beyond the grave
Source
“Well, if a corpse happens to have a lungful of air, moving them causes it to release. When the air travels through their throat, you get some minor vocalization, but it’s usually just a liquidy gurgle or snoring sound. It still gets me sometimes, though, especially if I’m working alone.”
The real Two-Face
“When you die, blood gravitates and settles and makes the body swell in those areas. I once had a man who had half of his face swollen from blood and was completely dried out on the other side. Super weird to see.”
You know something isn’t right when you can hear your own heart beat
“My first experience at work was when I first started my embalming career. I had just started my shift and was using a restroom in the back. When I came out, I heard what sounded like a girl sobbing and the sound of feet shuffling around on the floor. The floor was kinda gravely and had a distinct sound if you scooted your feet on it. The sound was coming from around a corner that led into a small room where we would store embalmed bodies ready to be delivered to their respective funeral home. I figured someone was upset and crying. So I snuck in, still hearing the sobbing. When I peaked around the corner, the room was empty. No living person in there. I noticed that there was only one body in there as well. A young girl. She shot herself in the side of the head. I wasn’t scared per say, but I’m pretty sure you could audibly hear my heart beat.”
Never open the eyelids.
“One of the creepiest for me was having to clean a gentleman up…I was supposed to clean his eyes, as well. Opened those up only to see two empty sockets. No eyes. Apparently, it was post-autopsy embalming.”
Are you sure you’re alone?
“I only experienced something one time and that was around 10pm, after 2 years with no activity at the location. I had turned all the lights off in the chapel and when I went to check the casket door, the lights turned back on. I was no where near the switch.”
The dead guy with impeccable posture
“My neighbor was a mortician. He told me one night he had a body he was preparing for a very early morning wake or service (whatever was going on, it was unusual, and it required him to work into the wee hours of the morning on this particular corpse).
As he was working on it, he turned his back to grab some tools, and the angle he was standing at left the corpse visible just out of the corner of his eye. As he was looking down at whatever tools he was getting, in the corner of his eye he saw the body slowly start to sit up. His fight/flight instinct immediately kicked in, and he ran to the stairs as fast as he could, but he was so clumsy trying to get up the stairs that he tripped and was pretty much crawling and clawing his way to the top. He was just near the top before his senses finally came back, and he knew it was rigor mortis. He collected himself and started to laugh at how absurd it all was. He had been doing this for 15-20 years, and he had never had a freak out like that before where instinct overtook knowledge and experience. He actually sheepishly admitted he had to go clean himself because he had sh*t his pants in the panic.”
Three whole weeks?!
“A man was brought into us after lying dead in his garage for 3 weeks in the summertime. He was covered in bugs, his skin was black and green, and the flesh sloshed right off the bone. I couldn’t do anything for that case. He was cremated.”
Someone get this guy a jacket!
“I was filling out paperwork over one of the stiffs all by myself while working late one night when it shuddered. Never saw that before or after, no explanation.”
That’s not creepy at all…
“My mom works in the funeral business. Sometimes I would come to work with her and help her set up the chapel for a service. One service in particular was of a little boy who drowned. His parents dressed his identical twin brother in the same outfit as him.”
The transforming woman
“My most embarrassing moment was with a man who had died before fully completing a sex change. I had no idea what to ask the family but she made a very convincing woman. That family fought for forever about wanting us to turn her back into a guy (the parents were religious and resented him). Luckily, a son put his foot down. It worked out well but that old couple hated me.”
The funeral director said “no doves” for a reason
“I’m a funeral director/embalmer and I have seen…just so many bad funerals. One really stood out. A family released doves in a rural cemetery, after being told not to, and a hawk ripped one to pieces.”
A lot of sad clowns
“We had a dead clown one time. This person was buried in full clown costume with makeup and all. The whole family was dressed as clowns, and all the friends were clowns. And at the family’s request, the funeral directors were clowns too. They supplied costume and did our makeup. Family and friends had one tear drop painted on near the eye.”
TMI…
“In the chapel area, there was a large woman in a coffin who was prepped for the next day. A funeral worker told us about how she was covered in trash bags underneath her clothes because she was leaking out everywhere.”
What a classy man
“Both of my parents are funeral directors. At one service my mom was at, the wife of this older gentleman had passed away. He showed up to the funeral with his new girlfriend who was much younger and was wearing a very busty outfit. When the husband would begin to cry, the girlfriend would bring him into her chest to comfort him while stroking his hair. Shortly thereafter, the husband asked one of the funeral directors about the flowers from the funeral. He wanted to know if he could take them with him for the wedding he was having that weekend with his new fiancé.”
There’s two of them!
“My grandfather was an identical twin. When gramps and our family walked into his brother’s funeral, it became very clear, very quickly, that not all of the friends of the deceased knew this.”