Down Among the Dead Men_ A Year in the Life of a Mortuary Technician - Michelle Williams [13]
The time passed slowly with the usual routine of paperwork and cleaning, but the PM request had still not arrived in Clive’s inbox by the end of the day. What the hell was Neville playing at? He’d promised us faithfully to get the request through as soon as he could. Mr Patterson on the surface appeared to be OK, considering; going a bit green and marbled over his stomach and across his shoulders, but not yet too slimy or unpleasant to look at. A bit of blistering on his upper thighs, but again, that could be sorted, so I was told.
Tuesday came and, switching on the computer, Clive had still not received the PM request. He could not ring Neville as he would not be in till nine, but we had two old ladies that required autopsies so we at least had something to be getting on with, although not even Ed Burberry singing along to John Denver could distract from the smell that was becoming distinctly stronger.
During all this time, Clive was constantly pondering the way we were going to get Mr Patterson onto the dissection table. We were supposedly restricted by manual handling guidelines from moving Mr Patterson without proper equipment, but the hoist we had only lifted a maximum of twenty stone, so he reckoned that the manual handling guidelines might have to go out the window in this case and he would therefore just have to hope and pray that nobody got injured doing it. He wasn’t very happy about this but, as he pointed out, since there had been no PM request, there was no problem yet.
Unbelievably, another day went by and there was still nothing from the Coroner’s office. Clive spoke to Neville on several occasions and was starting to get a little agitated, but Neville was having trouble getting hold of Mr Patterson’s GP and needed more medical history before he could book it. Mr P still lay in the body store, on the collapsed trolley. He was becoming more and more offensive; the green colouring was working its way up his chest and he was making his presence known throughout the whole department. People were starting to pass comments, as if we were the ones making the stink. We needed this post-mortem done and out of the way as soon as possible. I had discovered that he had one advantage, though: after an hour or so in the mortuary, you don’t notice the smell because your nose just gives up the struggle. But we were now having to put families off coming to see their deceased relatives because the odour was seeping through into the viewing area and I could hear Clive lie to them on the phone about how we were fully booked with the police over the viewing times; and to top it all, there was still no news from Neville.
And then, like a miracle, sitting in Clive’s inbox the next morning was the PM request for Mr P. One problem down, but another one to be resolved. We needed to get Mr P on the table. The hydraulics on the trolley refused to work under the strain of the weight, so Mr P was at a level beneath the dissection table and we couldn’t slide him directly on to it. We needed manpower so Graham rang the porters’ lodge and asked them to send two burly porters down to the mortuary. Within ten minutes, they arrived. They were astounded by what they saw and smelled, but they got to work straight away. It took all five of us to do it, but we managed to raise the trolley by sheer force, and quickly pulled Mr P onto the table.
All of which effort only meant another problem: he was on the table, but now we had to get him undressed. Graham was not going to be able to carefully unbutton his clothes, fold them nicely and place them in a bag. They were going to have to be cut up the middle and pulled away (complete with skin and slime) as Clive and I rocked Mr P from side to side on the table; that operation alone left us feeling completely exhausted.
Once undressed, he did not present