Tales from the Morgue

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15 (KJV)

Youngest son is not generally a communicative guy. Our conversations generally go like this: Me: How was school today? Him: Fine. Me: Do you have to work tomorrow? Him: Yes (or no, depending on the day.) Me: Are you going to be home for dinner tonight? Him: Maybe. And on it goes. So, imagine my surprise when we had friends over for dinner last night and youngest son turned into Chatty Cathy and was the life of the party. Apparently, he is learning quite a bit in paramedic school, though I am not sure how much is truth and how much is urban legend. At some points, I tried to signal him to stop talking as part of what he was saying was not really good dinner conversation. This is what I learned. A local hospital only has three “coolers” in his morgue so when they have more than three bodies, they have an employee whose job it is to rotate the bodies in and out of the coolers every thirty minutes. Dead bodies will often stiffen up as they wait and sometimes pop up into sitting position scaring the crud out of whoever happens to be around. Another local hospital recently took a body to the morgue and when the relatives came to identify their loved one, the body opened its eyes and they all thought he was still alive. You can put coffee grounds into an IV for a shot of caffeine if you are having trouble staying awake on shift. A good way to practice IV insertion is on a ham. Ninety percent of a fireman’s calls are medical in nature. Rarely do they respond to a fire emergency. He went into a detailed description of some pranks that are played at the fire station that involve shower heads and oxygen bottles, but I was still reeling from the morgue stories so I didn’t pay attention to those. The piece of trivia that seemed to get the most play was the fact that many people die while sitting on the toilet. Apparently, there is a possible of lowering your blood pressure at the time of a bodily function that occurs on the toilet. And sometimes, your blood pressure lowers to such an extreme that you die. I thought youngest son was pulling my leg, but one of our friends, who is a Victim’s Advocate, confirmed the truth of his story. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about when I am in the bathroom! Still and all, it was good to hear him so excited about his studies and his work. There may not be a lot of truth in what he was saying, but there is truth in the fact that once someone finds their “niche”, there is no stopping them from learning all they can. That brings me to another amazing situation. He just asked me to help him study for an anatomy and physiology exam. Someone must have given a pig an IV of caffeine becuase it’s flying.