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By Root 178 0

a pretty picture; both sides of his body were hanging down off the table, he was going a very dark, slimy green, and various blisters had started to appear over his body as his skin began to break down. Graham was doing the evisceration on this body and, although understandably not cheerful, was professional and resigned about it. What with Mr P being so slimy, he explained that he needed to be extra careful of slipping with the knife and taking off one of his own fingers with it. He said that the hardest job with cutting open an obese person is the layer upon layer of fat you have to get through. Once that is done, taking out the organs is a doddle as they aren’t usually so much bigger than those of an average person. He was huffing and puffing, trying to get the fat to stay back while at the same time trying to reach the organs, which even he – and he is not short – could only do on tiptoes. All the tools he was using had sheen to them now from the layers of greasy fat that clung to them. Clive made various comment about how he possibly needed to tie some rope around Graham’s ankles in case he fell in.

And never believe an obese person who tells you they are big-boned; inside Mr P was a small man trying not to suffocate. As it happened, Dr Burberry discovered that Mr P had a deep vein thrombosis in his leg, which can break off and lead to pulmonary embolism in the lungs. He said that he probably got it because he hardly ever moved.

After this, Graham reconstructed the body, which on an obese body usually proves very difficult as the skin will tear when the needle goes through because of the sheer weight you are trying to stitch back together; even if that doesn’t happen, you have to hope and pray that the two sides of the incision down the body are lined up. Graham explained that when he started out, quite often he ended up with one nipple two inches higher than the other! But he now had a nifty way of dealing with the reconstruction of a larger body. He would draw three lines across the body, horizontally, then stitch these back together first, so everything was lined up again. Job done.

That still wasn’t the end of it, though. Clive said that the problem now was that Mr P was a health hazard. His body cavity had been opened and contaminated with gut contents; we had no body bag big enough to put him in and we could not refrigerate him as he was too wide. Clive was worried about the health of those of us working in the mortuary. Although with any body there is a danger of disease and therefore a daily risk to the staff, with an average-sized body, they can be handled safely by being sealed in a body bag and put back into refrigeration. Mr P was lying uncovered, oozing body fluid which was dripping and trickling onto the floor. Clive rang Neville at once to confirm that we could release the body back to the funeral directors as Ed had given them a cause of death and our job was done. Initially the funeral directors were not keen on coming and collecting Mr P; they don’t want decomposing bodies around the place any more than we do.

What the hell were we going to do with him? He could not stay on the table over the weekend forming a puddle on the floor. Clive muttered about the possibility of the mortuary being closed down and all this hitting the local press. He thought about contacting the Infection Control Department, but wasn’t sure how to go about it. He took this problem to Ed who, thank goodness, got to work it. Within the hour everything was settled; although there had at one point been talk of hiring – at a cost of several thousand pounds – a refrigerated lorry just for Mr P, the funeral directors were persuaded to co-operate and come and collect him that day.

Barry Patterson at last left the building just before it was time to lock up for the evening, in a coffin that looked like a wardrobe, and carried by eight undertakers. Another week gone and definitely time for the pub again. I rang Maddie at once.

I had first met Maddie a couple of days into working in the mortuary. She had started at about the same