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A Charredtorso story.

UP IN SMOKE

I haven't spent a lot of time talking about fire and it's effects on humans. Here comes a story to brighten your weekend.

Very early in my career as a Mortician I was dispatched to a house fire by the L.A. County coroner. My work associates knew it would be my first house fire and tried to fill me with dread at the stench and gruesome nature of a burned human body. My partner and I arrived at the projects in Santa Monica CA early in the morning. Apparently Leuwanda had made herself comfy in her over stuffed chair, lit a cigarette and fell asleep. She woke up with 3rd and 4th degree (charring) burns on her entire body and deader than hell!

By the time we got there the fire department had busted out all of the windows in her ground floor apartment and soaked the entire living room in 2 inches of water. We had to plow our way through a huge crowd of gawkers, none of whom had to go to work or even thought about attending school. The deceased was burned beyond recognition, all of her facial features were burned off, as was much of her skin on her upper body.

Every window that had been busted out and the front door was packed with people staring at this over cooked woman while we tried to conduct business with the cops and the firemen. The hooting and yelling made a tragedy sound like a carnival in Compton! As I was taking my report I gazed at the deceased. I had worked all night and hadn't eaten for 10-12 hours. Her hands were both burned off and the skin of her forearms was all gone. Her arms looked like large Turkey drumsticks and the smell coming off the well done meat MADE ME HUNGRIER!

We were finally ready to put the deceased on our mortuary cot and roll out to our waiting 'Meat Wagon'. The cops tried to politely shoo the lookie lous away, to no avail. We put a rolled sheet under her armpits and another behind her knees. When we lifted her up by the sheets her head snapped back. Steam and foam began coming out of the cranial sutures of her skull (where the skull grows together with age). There was a hissing sound and one of her eyes popped out of it's socket!

Negros, of all ages, sexes and sizes, began screaming at the top of their lungs and running in all directions! They slammed into each other then would bounce into another and another. Little cubs were getting trampled and knocked flat. The scene became KAOTIC. A percussion grenade in a primate holding facility would not have had such a dramatic effect. My partner, myself and several of the firemen busted out in laughter and then caught ourselves quickly.

As if by a miracle the sea of humanity had parted and we were able to get out to our car amid the few that were laying around demanding AM-bulances. I was able to drop off my paperwork and the body at the Coroner's Office and still make it to my first High School class of the day. When I went back to work the following night my co-workers asked me about the fire, several had seen it on the news. "There were lots of Negros and it made me hungry."

People often have difficulty with the reality of having a friend or relative burned far beyond recognition. I have had families stand toe to toe with me DEMANDING to see their incinerated relative. By law you can't actually refuse them the opportunity to become violently ill or sustain lasting mental issues. I would often try to get them to sign a waiver absolving the mortuary of any damage or injury they sustained. Sometimes the waiver worked, sometimes it didn't. At that point I would try to show them a Polaroid photo of the deceased. Sometimes the photo worked but if you were dealing with Mexicans or other Hispanics you may as well give up.

People have demanded I 'fix' the charred bodies or those with partial burns that smelled strongly of burned hair. You can only do so much with what you have to work with. So you would use half a pound of 'embalmer's wax' and two jars of make up, waste hours of your time to wind up with something that looked like 'The Crypt Keeper. THEN the family would yell at you because their relative looked like a dried turd with tan paint on it and try to get out of paying the funeral bill!

I have enough fire stories to write a book. If there is additional interest I will knock out a few stories. They can be approached from the mortician's, cop's or coroner's perspective... I blank out on these topics until there is some stimulus on Kaotic.

CT.