So how do funeral directors really know when someone is dead? Good question! The truth is that the only true sign of death is decomposition. An experienced embalmer knows the signs and can identify certain aspects of early stages of decomposition (like rigor mortis) immediately after death. Worst case scenario is that when the incision is made in the artery (for injection of embalming fluid), the blood will still be flowing and a call will be made immediately to 911! After all, funeral directors will not pick up a Loved One until an official pronouncement time of death has been declared by an authorized person like a doctor, hospice nurse, or medical investigator or coroner. These professionals have methods, and usually it is the presence of a pulse.
With the recent news of a man in South Africa who woke up in the morgue, I was caught off guard and a little surprised! This article said when the mortuary workers heard a man screaming from the refrigeration unit, they thought they were hearing “a ghost and ran for their lives.” He had been in the morgue for approximately 21 hours. Many times we embalm a person after they have been dead only a few hours. What if an embalmer began embalming this South African man shortly after the pronouncement time of his death? I’m pretty sure that there would have been a call to the local emergency authorities after the embalmer found a pulse in the arteries. I won’t say it never happens but I sure don’t want to witness it myself. As a fourth generation funeral director, Louis tells the story of only one instance where his dad placed a baby on the embalming table and it began to cry. After the ambulance picked up the baby, it continued to live only another week.
This story has made me think twice before embalming a body. I just hope I don’t hear about another “dead” body waking up for a really long time. Nonetheless, I am still not afraid to be in a building filled with dead bodies. With the craziness of the world outside the walls of a mortuary, there is much more to fear in live people than those that have transitioned to eternity.
