Random Coroners Describe the Gnarliest Bodies They've Ever Seen (16 items)

• (#1) Corpse Stew

  This one is from Redditor whoatethekidsthen:

  [Taking one's life] by pills and alcohol.

  That in itself isn't that shocking. The individual took an entire bottle of sleeping pills, drank a half bottle of alcohol, and got into their hot tub.

  The individual [perished], but the body remained in the hot tub until the smell of the decomp alerted neighbors.

  If you could imagine a body decomposing then liquefying in a hot tub, it still really doesn't do the actual sight of it justice.

  The smell was so intense that many of us vomited (including the guys from Aftermath Inc. hired by the family to clean up.)

  Best I can describe it is, the individual [perished] in a hot tub which then became a giant crock pot of [corpse] stew.
• (#2) Cooked In A Fire

  From Redditor cstoli:

  My very first case was an elderly male who [perished] in a house fire. The firemen were unable to extract him until after the fire was put out, so he was completely cooked. What struck me was how similar the smell is to a pig roast. When I opened the rib cage, it looked just like cooked ribs without sauce. The skin was crackling and oil and juices pooled in the crease between the skin and exposed rib cage.

  I was off pork for about three months.
• (#3) Facial Dissection Of A Slain Person

  Shared by SparkleSpectre:

  Trainee anatomical pathology technician here (AKA mortician, I guess). Th[e] most interesting and creepiest thing I have seen so far was a facial dissection of a [slain person]. Basically the face is peeled off the skull from the chin upwards, but is left attached at the nose to help re-orientate it back into it's original position (even though it can never be perfectly placed back to where it was)... Was very strange to see the inside of someone's mouth folded up over the rest of their face.
• (#4) A Jigsaw Through The Forehead

  A tale from Redditor muklan:

  My ex-wife worked in a funeral home. She said they once had [someone take their own life]... with a jigsaw... through the forehead. It was still in when the body arrived, apparently they had to turn it on for a split second to free it from her skull.
• (#5) Lots Of Weirdness

  From Kabukikitsune:

  I've seen a few in my life, though not being the part of the ME [medical examiner], or coroner. In the past I worked as a deputy, so every so often we'd have to do calls where inevitably we ran across deceased persons.

  A couple that stick in my mind as being the most bizarre:

  Responded to a house after a man's wife called to report her husband had been attacked and [sexually accosted]. We arrive to find the man [perished], with no pants on, in the barn. Best we could ever figure out was the man had been having relations with a small pony, and ended up being mounted by a stallion. Perforated his intestines and he bled [out].

  We had another that took the better part of two years to solve. In that case, a young boy (about fifteen) was found wrapped around a pine tree, wearing only his boxers. By wrapped around, I mean in the sense of every bone in his body broken. His friends weren't talking on what happened, and while yes, foul play was suspected, we couldn't exactly arrest on suspicions. Eventually, about two years later, after one of his buddies had been picked up on a somewhat minor trespassing charge, he came clean. Apparently the boys had this game they would play where they would get drunk, then catch one of the passing freight trains. As the train neared the usual swimming hole, the boys would jump off the train down into the water. Supposedly when the train neared the usual bridge, the boy in question mis-timed his jump and ended up wrapping himself around the tree. The other boys were just to[o] scared to admit they had been involved.

  One that was NEVER solved involved a set of remains that were found inside an old brick smokestack during the stack's demolition. What gets weird about it was the man had apparently [starved], so that ruled out him as having fallen inside the stack. There wasn't a ladder on the outside of the stack, nor a door to access that area. The smokestack was tied to an old school and had last been used some time in the mid 1950s. The remains were dressed in clothing typical of the 1970s, which just made things even stranger. We identified the body as being a young man who had gone missing sometime in 1974, though beyond that the trail went cold. Never figured out how he had gotten himself in there in the first place.
• (#6) Toilet Brush To The Brain

  Shared by ZaphodBbox:

  Only second hand, but I've seen evidence without asking for it. A guy fell in the bathroom and stuck the toilet brush handle through his eye-socket into his brain. Was barely alive when he arrived at the hospital and didn't make it. If this had been in a movie, I would have thought it was far too ridiculous. By far the weirdest of very few.
• (#7) Steamed Like A Lobster

  Redditor aidyfarman shared this:

  “What’s the worst way to [perish]?” is the next-most-asked question, to which Melinek usually replies, “You don’t want to know.” When people insist, however, she tells them about Sean Doyle.

  Around Christmas 2002, bartender Doyle went out drinking with pal Michael Wright and Wright’s girlfriend. As they all walked home, Wright thought Doyle was hitting on his girlfriend, and witnesses later told cops they saw a man getting “the sh*t beat out of him.” He was heard screaming, “No, don’t break my legs!” and another witness said he saw someone throw Doyle down an open manhole.

  The drop was 18 feet. At the bottom was a pool of boiling ­water, from a broken main. Doyle didn’t [perish] instantly - in fact, as first responders arrived, he was standing below, reaching up and screaming for help. No paramedic or firefighter could climb down to help - it was, a Con Ed supervisor said, 300 degrees in the steam tunnel.

  Four hours later, Sean Doyle’s body was finally recovered. Its temperature was 125 degrees -  the medical examiners thought it was likely way higher, but thermometers don’t read any higher than that.

  When Melinek saw the body on her autopsy table, she writes, she thought he’d “been steamed like a lobster.” His entire outer layer of skin had peeled off, and his internal organs were literally cooked.

  He otherwise had no broken bones and no head trauma, which meant he was fully conscious as he boiled.
• (#8) A Double Decapitation

  From Like_meowschwitz:

  I'm a funeral director/embalmer. I've never really been creeped out by anything, but what has to be my most wtf moment was a double decapitation of a husband and wife from an motor vehicle accident. Took almost 9 hours, but both could have an open casket when we were done.
• (#9) Swallowed A Fish Bone

  According to iLauraawr:

  My sister works as a histologist and has helped out for one or two autopsies. She told me a story of how when they were doing an autopsy on this guy his bowels were extremely swollen, hard and stuck [sic] together. On further examination, he had swallowed a fish bone which pierced his stomach, into his intestines and skewered them together.
• (#10) The Body In The River

  This one is from Redditor ChocolateSporks:

  My friend had a relative/friend of a parent that was a coroner or worked in forensics. One day a body was pulled from a river, so the skin had shriveled, but they wanted to get the fingerprints. So the forensics woman cuts the skin on a finger so that she can slide her own finger in under the skin and smooth it out from the inside. I always thought that was super creepy.
• (#11) Baby Corpses

  Shared by bobbarker2257:

  I'm going to use my throw away for this:

  So going with the gist of the topic: I work as an RN in labor and delivery at a high risk center, so we often get the worst cases. Unfortunately, fetal demises aren't too rare. Usually they are from congenital abnormalities or spontaneous abortions. Having worked in the past with adults who have [perished], working with [perished] babies is much more disturbing than I would have ever thought. Anyways, two stories stick out in my mind the most:

  My first fetal demise was an induction for a 18-week-old fetus (I don't remember the cause). Fresh out of school and loving working with happy healthy babies, this assignment terrified me. The mother delivered the baby completely intact in the amniotic sac. With the mother and father sobbing, I go to pick up the sac, place it on a blanket and take it over to the table to examine and assign APGARS; obviously 0/0. I stood there staring at this blob trying to remain professional and maintain my composure but was completely frozen with fear. My preceptor at the time said "If you're ok, go ahead and open the bag. Take the baby out, wrap him/her up, and hand it over to mom." 

  I use my fingers to rip open the bag. Fluid pours out, the smell was something I'd never experienced before. Holding my breath, I take out the baby. At 18 weeks, the skin is very red/pink sticky and honestly alien looking. The eyes were bulging and we couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl. I think I was more terrified to show the parents, who had already been through so much, because I knew they imagined their beautiful baby to look very different than from what I was about to hand them. I cleaned up, gave the family some alone time and stepped out of that room completely changed.

  My next story happened when I felt a little more comfortable in these situations, as much as possible I guess. This baby was about around 18-19 weeks also, induction due to anencephaly. The baby delivered by the time my shift started so it was now my job to take photos of the baby, foot prints, and create a nice memory box for the family. I took the baby in another room to dress in little clothes and try to get as nice of pictures as possible. The baby was so fragile it was like working with Jello. The skull was actually open, no brain but oozing all over. I tried to adjust the baby to get a better angle for the picture when suddenly the head slips from my hand and spins around all the way around, one full rotation. Out loud I actually said "Please don't pop off, please don't pop off!" I spun the head back in place and gave up with the photos. I got a couple ok photos, but wasn't about to risk getting more to have to explain to grieving parents why their baby was suddenly decapitated.
• (#12) Crack Santa

  From pericardia:

  So I used to do some work for a forensic anthropologist at the MEO in our city. We once had a set of remains that were 1) found in a chimney 2) with a crack pipe and 3) a burlap sack.

  We called him Crack Santa.

  I'm pretty sure if any of my friends see this on reddit my identity is blown, but worth it!
• (#13) Shot Through The Eye

  From Redditor Yorkshiretit:

  I'm an anatomy student and there's a museum at the university with all different pathological specimens. The one that haunts me till this day is a jar containing just a man's face which was shot through the eye. The rest of the face is surprisingly intact, well the best you could hope for after being shot.
• (#14) iPod Impalement

  A short story from [deleted]:

  [I once saw an] iPod stuck inside of a car crash victim. I guess the force of the impact jammed it in the wound.
• (#15) Baby In A Microwave

  According to Redditor somethingspiffy:

  I was a biological anthropology major with a minor in forensics. She was a forensic investigator for years and never seemed to be bothered by anything blood and gore. I came to know her pretty well and we were talking one night while on a three-week field school. She said she could deal with all the car crashes and gunshot victims. Adults or kids.

  She was called in on a case one night and she said she knew something was really bad because of the looks on the detective faces. She was directed to the kitchen. She was expecting a bloodbath. There was no body laying in the floor. There was no blood splattered on the walls. There was, however, a microwave with a baby in it.

  That was her last case. She quit and became a teacher. I've never verified the details but I don't have any reason not to believe her.

  Edit: More than one person mentioned True Detective. That's not were this came from. I was told this over a decade ago and as far as I know she was telling the truth. This is a lady who worked identifying victims at the Oklahoma City bombings and taught me how to do facial reconstruction. I believed her.
• (#16) Anatomical Abnormalities

  Some stories from Typhun:

  I have a few thousand hours of cadaver dissection under my belt, and anatomical abnormalities are my absolute favorite to stumble upon during the course of a dissection. We all have a general plan with our bodies that most of us follow, but there are variations that will never have any positive or negative impact that you will never know about, and somebody like me stumbles upon it after the fact.

  There are a lot of documented variations in texts like Gray's Anatomy, but sometimes you'll stumble upon things that you can't really identify or aren't really too well documented. Some people will have extra muscles in there arms, legs, or hands. I'm not talking about things like plantaris or palmaris longus, but extra muscles that re completely unique with no documented names that I could find. It's always really odd.

  Sometimes, people will have congenital abnormalities and be missing a muscle, artery, nerve, etc. One person, their vertebral artery came directly off of the aorta on the right (I believe, going by memory) as opposed to the subclavian which is the normal occurrence. Now, the really odd part about this was that the left vertebral artery terminated at the posterior inferior cerebellar artery, so the basilar artery contribution was only from the right vertebral artery. Their Circle of Willis had an incomplete contribution, but I don't know anything about the people when they are alive so I don't know if they had any cognitive or neurological deficits.

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