Down Among the Dead Men_ A Year in the Life of a Mortuary Technician - Michelle Williams [94]
The second of the essay questions I chose to answer was on how you would take extra precautions when performing a high-risk autopsy, which means one on someone who has died from a highly infectious disease such as hepatitis or HIV. Clive began to speak loudly in my mind.
All your PPE as you would anyway, Michelle, but wear a chain-mail glove on the hand you retract the organs with . . .
Not your knife hand, the hand that is in the body, because that is the one you will most likely cut . . .
Do not leave the post-mortem room under any circumstances . . .
Keep your table free of blood splashes and make sure you keep the floor clean, and don’t think twice about wrapping the mop around the pathologist’s ankles if they spill blood on the floor, they can be messy buggers, mind, up the walls, ceiling and everywhere, keep it clean . . .
The infections are in the blood, Michelle, and it only takes a drop, NO needle stick injuries either, under any circumstances, and continue to disinfect as you go along . . .
But most importantly, you cover yourself up, keep yourself protected as you are important, don’t do anything you feel is a risk to yourself or others, and take your time. Always ask a senior if you’re not sure, they like that in the exam as well if you mention it . . .
As I came out of my thoughts, if Clive had been there I would have kissed him. The question was answered and half of the task done. Then, the fear came back and I took a couple of minutes before I turned the page. This was ‘fill in the gaps’ time. Written on the paper were twenty-five answers with blanks in the sentences; some had one blank, some had two. All we had to do was write down the answers in the exercise book. Luckily I knew about seventeen of these answers and had a random guess at the rest. By the time I had finished and read through, it was three thirty. Half an hour to waste. I placed my pen down and just sat there. Miss Rayne picked up on this and came over to me and whispered that I could leave if I was finished. I was out like a shot.
The fresh air hit me like never before when I came out of the building, and the relief that it was over was surreal, but within minutes I began to feel I needed to go back in and tweak my answers, because I was seriously starting to doubt myself. There was no way this was going to happen though, and my chance was over. I switched my phone back on and, between the late text messages coming through, rang Mum, who was in a café just down the street. When I met her, she had an empty coffee cup and I insisted that we headed for the nearest pub for some food and something to calm my nerves.
There was nothing I could do now apart from wait and try to forget all about it.
FIFTY
And then, during the seven weeks I had to wait for the results of my ordeal in the exam hall, it went really quiet; it’s like that in the mortuary – people dropping dead like it’s going out of fashion for a few weeks, then suddenly they decide that they want to hang on for a bit, so we have nothing to do. I used to long for days like this – in my previous job, any down time from the stresses of dealing with special needs people was a plus – but in the mortuary, there is only so much cleaning, tidying, ordering and paperwork you can do. After that, it tends to be sitting in the office, drinking coffee, gossiping and seeing to undertakers and relatives coming for viewings.
On days like this, Clive amused himself and us with stories and observations about what was going on around us. The mortuary office has a window that not only looks across to the A&E department but also allows