This whole QOTW.....
Off Topic

Is reminding me of the film (starring smith'n Jones) called "Wilt" ... A wonderful dramatisation of Tom Sharpe's book.

I've tried finding it on BitTorrent but cant... and no Swedish video store has it. Anyone got a copy?

On topic:
I've plucked more pheasants than I care to remember. Stinky little fuckers when you've hung them for too long...
( Humpty Dumpty was Pushed Is unaware of having any limits., Tue 4 Mar 2008, 15:01, 8 replies)

*pop*
Don't think so, but I thought I had...

A year or so ago I had the (mis?)fortune to be playing a gig with a band on the Isle of Arran. For those who haven't been, it's chuffing miles away, the other end of a several hour drive and a ferry ride. It's beautiful though, and feels a bit funny in an earth magic kind of way. You feel like you need to watch out for the druids everywhere. Very quiet, cold, one road on the whole island. Brilliant.

Anyway, we arrived, went on a tour of the island, rigged, did the gig, packed the van and off to the ferry (via bed). Heading back on the ferry we feel it start to turn round mid-journey. Because a ferry is huge we're not quite sure if it is turning round - also, we're all very tired and, by now, running on caffeine only. But then we get an announcement; "This is your captain, we have been asked to turn round to make a possible rescue in connection with a boat which went missing last night", or words to that effect. So of course we all head up onto the deck and stand on the rail looking for whatever it is.

Pretty soon the ferry slows down and we realise that the crew have probably seen something. At this point I get my camera out, thinking that if there's an upturned boat/survivor/dead body around, I might as well grab a picture. Since I have a zoom lens, I use it to have a look around with, but someone beats me to it and excited pointing starts, so I point my camera and take a look.

As I catch sight of whatever it is, a woman speaks up from behind us - "oh no, it's a child," she says, and I see that it does indeed appear to be a child in an all-in-one suit, floating face down and presumably very wet, cold and dead. When I saw it, the seriousness of it all hit me and I felt like the lowest of the low for having a camera out. Two thoughts... 1) somewhere there was a family who would shortly be going through hell, and 2) it just didn't seem fair that we were all going to know the fate of their child before they were. I know it sounds cliched, but at that moment, it wasn't. Looking around I could see from the faces of fellow passengers that everyone was feeling the same way - we had all been excited about seeing something, and now the thought that the "something" was someone's dead child left us feeling pretty poor.

Thankfully as the ferry drew near we saw that the suit didn't have anyone in it, though I've no idea what an empty romper suit was doing there - especially as people had apparently gone missing the night before.

My feelings were heightened by the bass player commenting "at least someone's got less Christmas presents to buy this year"... a minute or so *before* we realised that it wasn't a body after all. I managed to restrain myself from throwing him overboard though, insensitive git.

*pop* refers to my b3ta cherry, woo. Er... the girth of our Transit van didn't even touch the sides of the ferry. etc etc
(Ed Quarters has moved house!, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 14:49, 3 replies)

been there, seen it
So here we go, long time lurker-first time poster, I hope the interwebs isn't hurting me.

Who would have thought, I'd finally register at this question... but anyways, don't wait for too much fun, that'll be kept for coming qotw's.

I volunteer as a paramedic. Most of the time it's carrying elderly, sick or combinations of both people to and fro the hospital, that's the regular service.

On my first night at emergency service (the real 911 stuff) a guy crashed his car at high speed straight into a wall, no skid marks, straight road, nothing. Airbags went off, but he didn't wear a seatbelt - can't recommend this combination, was not a nice view. But he was dead before we arrived, maybe even before he crashed by stroke or cardiac arrest, nothing left we could do for him. Doctor confirmed flatline, fire brigade had to cut him out, we covered him and left him for the coroners.

Changes your view on driving, I've never driven as cautious as this on my way home after the shift.

Length? What was left from the bonnet was about 20cm long.
(threeverse ultima ratio regum, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 14:46, Reply)

The Otters.
I grew up in some stunning english countryside and - dick-jokes aside - many a happy hour were spent playing in the woods and feilds

There was one particular place though. A place that I used to go to all by myself. My parents had taken me there a few times when I was little: A small body of water in a really secluded and quiet area. As I got older I began to appreciate the solitude and I'd go there to collect my thoughts.

The stream in and out of there would alternate between fast running and a mere trickle, but one thing that would never change was the Otters.

They'd be hiding when I turned up I think - maybe my approach would have scared them away - but after a while they'd be there, coming out to play after I'd sat still for a bit. Splashing in the water and larking about and gliding effortlessly to the bottom of the pool.

As a youngster I was fascinated and used to sit mesmerised for ages, but the passing of time saw me being merely happy to know they were there as I sat and read a book, or just dozed quietly. I always felt lighter when I left: it was *that* relaxing.

One particular summer afternoon left me mildly scarred though. Turning up, expecting to find the water without an otter to be seen, I noticed a horrific stench as I approached the pool. There, with it's nose stuck just out of the water was a monster of an otter. Dead, putrid and fairly stiff-looking.

I ran; tears of horror streaming from my eyes. My favourite place had been sullied, Never again would I sit and enjoy the peace and tranquillity as the otters splashed.



Why oh WHY can't people learn to flush?
( Humpty Dumpty was Pushed Is unaware of having any limits., Tue 4 Mar 2008, 14:41, Reply)

squish!
my friend had 2 cats, mel and pepsi. he loved those cats as if they were his children.
one night, i'm sitting watching t.v with a neighbour, when my phone rings. it's my friend, sobbing uncontrollably. "pepsi's dead!" he cried. "she was run over and she's dead!" it took me a good ten minutes to calm him down, he was inconsolable.

after hanging up the phone, my neighbour asked what was wrong with my friend. i told him about the cat, its encounter with the car and subsequent death. my neighbour looks at me and says "that's terrible, there's nothing worse than flat pepsi."

i wish i could say i yelled at him for being insensitive, but i was far too busy laughing my tits off.

EDIT: he had a cat funeral, so i did see the body
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 13:44, 4 replies)

Not me guv
But I have a couple of friends who have worked in the ambulance service and also one worked as a clinical pathologist (think Silent Witness, not sure that that's the actual term but you get the point). The delights they have seen over the years include:

A forty year old man who had been submerged in a swimming pool for four months. Someone had whacked him on the head and left him to drown, before pulling the tarpaulin over the top of him. He'd swollen up beyond belief, his eyes had popped out of his socket and his skin was an unsightly green-black colour. There's a similar one on Rotten.com. He was a rather solitary man so no-one had really noticed he'd gone.

An old person who'd melted in their seat. This happens when the person in question is very dirty, lives in squalor and wears thick overcoats indoors (to combat not having heating). They drop a cigarette butt, their coat catches fire, and their armchair acts as an insulate, with the grease and body fat as a candle. All that was left were the legs and the arms, as there's less fat on them.

A man who'd been masturbating with the handle of a mop, and had slipped on the wet patch in his kitchen, impaling himself on the mop handle. The exit wound was in his shoulder. I believe I read somewhere about a similar one where someone had been doing the same with a broom handle and balancing on the bath. You think these people would learn.

Then we have the obligatory maggots. Maggots everywhere. A middle aged man had died of a heart attack, and his elderly (and senile) mother had been living in the same house as him for at least three to four weeks, as he sat and decomposed in front of her. My friend in question who broke down the door with the police, had to wear three layers of overalls, all with vicks and the like rubbed in, and she still had to throw away her clothes to get rid of the smell. Oh, and there were maggots up against the door, they'd escaped and some of the rotting flesh had dropped onto the floor.

Of course there are the countless gunshot deaths, including one man who'd blown his head almost clean off, pretty much all of it was missing, apart from the outer layer of the skull and the brain stem at the base. He was also alive when they found him too, a few hours after he'd pulled the trigger. Died when they moved him, apparently.

I haven't seen a dead body, it's not something I'd like to do. However, all my friends in question who found the bodies were able to hold it together, apart from their first cases, and that was only when they put a name to the remains. Somehow knowing that this person was someone's son/husband/wife etc makes it all the more horrific.

Apologies for lack of humour, but there is a morbid fascination to be had with gruesome deaths.
(pacman_40 Pocket Kleenex: for the wanker on the go, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 13:42, 2 replies)

Yes
My nan in the chapel of rest. Her skin was all waxy, and you could see her eyeballs had been removed. It was supposedly a chance to say some final words, but the finality of it had passed some time ago. This wasn't my nan anymore, just a corpse.

Hated it.
( the_other_jeff_lebowski Croutons on my tits, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 13:38, Reply)

Yes, but only Monday to Friday...
I work in a mortuary with Mr Tubs......and we live in a cemetery. I'm not weird, it's just a perk.

8 years in the job and roughly 1000 post mortems a year makes that about.......erm (brain cells that haven't been overly affected by formaldehyde kick into gear)......8000 dead bodies, give or take.

I've also developed (perhaps unsurprisingly) a slightly odd sense of humour.

Hell of a way to meet Mr Tubs though. Got married last year.

Not in the cemetery though...

Click "I like this" to celebrate me popping my own B3TA lurking cherry. (NB. Help! How do I create a link to I like this - I'm really quite appalling with modern technology - Please Mr Moderator, won't you help?)

Length? I nearly choked on my muffin.
(HappyBoofy, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 13:23, 4 replies)

Yeah, but he's in the boot of my car now.
So it's alright.
( The Gentleman Bastard waxing lyrical. ©, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 12:47, 1 reply)

Seen two... maybe 3...
The first was my neighbour who died of a heart attack. He was only 50, and had only been married for less than a year. Very sad, but not particually interesting.

The second and possibly third was a tramp fight. One tramp was dead on the pavement with paramedics and police standing around him. I can only assume he was dead because he wasn't moving and was just lying there with blood on him and the paramedics weren't doing anything, just standing there and the police shooing people away and trying to move traffic on. The other tramp was in the park on the bench, but the paramedics were bent around him doing something, so maybe he wasn't dead. But I am pretty certain tramp number 1 had died.

On the many topics of train suicides though - I am the bringer of train suicide. Every bloody time I go to London Paddington to collect a reptile from London, somebody jumps infront of a train. Which is just sods law, as reptiles need keeping warm. At 10pm in the middle of winter, it's not exactly easy to do. Seriously... every bloody time...
( Bathory, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 12:26, 3 replies)

Getting between Men and Beer
A lifetime ago, I used to work in Bars/Hotels in Edinburgh.

The incident occurred when I was working in a respectable Hotel bar. It was a very busy place, frequented by the "in crowd" (or at least that's what they thought)...or perhaps it was a cattle market...oh, yes that's right, it had a sign outside declaring:

"Meet/Mix/Match/and Relax..."

So, picture the scene....Saturday night...I come on shift @ 5pm and the regulars are already getting a little, ahem, happy. It is horseshoe bar, with stools that we remove for Sat night so people can get to the bar.

On one of the stools is a couple of guys I haven't seen before - it turns out they are celebrating one of their 32nd birthday. "nice try" I say, thinking they were just trying to get a free drink...they laugh and I carry on serving the rest of the punters...

Fast forward four hours and they are still there (dark rum and cokes going down nicely). I watch as the guy having the birthday falls off his stool...he wasn't pushed, so I thought he had just had enough...but no! He had had a brain hemorrhage and we learned later that he was probable dead before he hit the floor.

So we call an ambulance, which duly comes and the paramedics get all their machines out and they all go "beep"...the police come and tell us that we need to close the bar whilst they investigate.

This is when the customers of the bar show their human side...

One that sticks in the memory is a guy stepping over the medics and the body - the conversation went like this:

Him "2 pints of lager please"
Me "'fraid the bar is closed"
Him "What??? it is only 9pm!!!"
Me "The guy you just stepped over is dead"
Him "Can't you move him?"

Lovely...
( JockyMcSporan has a pointy head but no pointy chin..., Tue 4 Mar 2008, 12:12, 4 replies)

The Night Of Sex And Death
New Year's Eve 1995 was notable. I was visiting my family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, and took the opportunity to visit a strip club called the 'Ice House'. It was a frolicsome good time, but very frustrating after several hours of persistent sexual titillation at the hands of buxom maidens. In search of simpler pleasures, I left before midnight and went back to my family's home and walked my dog Sparky instead.

We were walking along a dark boulevard about 11:45 p.m., when suddenly a racing engine thundered in the distance. A pickup truck inexplicably careened off the street, rolled out-of-control across a no-man's-land, and then plunged into an empty ditch. Sparky and I ran to see if we could help.

Arriving first at the scene, I scrambled into the dark ditch, opened the driver's-side door of the pickup truck, looked inside, and saw - nothing at all. No one appeared to be in the vehicle. Where did the driver go? I could hear a distinct mechanical gurgling that I attributed to coolant escaping from the shattered truck's radiator. I decided to check the passenger side of the vehicle.

Different story over there. What happened was, the driver, who had fallen asleep at the wheel (as I learned later, apparently after just one New Year's Eve beer), had gone halfway through the windshield upon the collision, and had fallen backwards, catching his throat on the broken glass and slashing him from ear to ear. He had then fallen under the passenger-side glove compartment (which is why I hadn't seen him at first). The gurgling sound I heard was his last bloody breath. And there was blood EVERYWHERE!

The victim was labeled by the local news media as the first Albuquerque fatality of 1995, but I knew he was the last Albuquerque fatality of 1994. Poor guy - age 18, he had been married just one week. Life is unfair. No sexual frustration had he, I'm sure, but then he was cursed with a low tolerance for alcohol. Laid, but not alive, whereas I am the opposite.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 9:34, 7 replies)

school days
Everyone remembers the kids at school who died. Those early augurs of mortality were our first intimation that our lives could end. At my school. there were a few: Jason Wilding, who was run over outside the school gates; Sheree Bowles, who died after sniffing powerful solvents; Kevin Bidden, who pushed a ball bearing up his rectum and got septicaemia.

But the real shock was the death of Kyle Scunner. Kyle was more sexually advanced than the rest of us. He not only had hair on his nuts while the rest of us lads were mere fluffy eggs - he had hair on his back and a beard. And a tattoo of a lady being pleasured by an Alsatian (he had to wear long sleeves at school). He was into the kinds of sexual activity that we could only dream about - getting a BJ from a hairdresser, for example.

His death was as lurid as his life. After we pieced together the rumours and the gossip, it became clear that he'd been overcome with libido and attempted to mount a friend's black labrador. The dog had been spooked and bit Kyle, whereupon he slayed it with the flick knife he perpetually carried. Unknown to him, the dog had been suffering with an infected bottom for some time and Kyle had picked up a dose of blood poisoning that killed him within two days.

Most surprising of all, we learned from newspaper reports that Kyle (real name: Hubert Destrangle) was 37 years old and a fugitive from a chain of indecency crimes in Belgium, where he was known as "the Canine Sodomite."
(frankspencer, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 9:25, 9 replies)

In the days of my youth.
I was working as an assistant on a television show, standing outside waiting for a truck to show up. I thought, "this truck better show up, I'm freezing to death." Then I looked across the street and noticed a bunch of cop cars. Then I noticed they were standing next to a white sheet with boots sticking out from it. I thought, "how terrible, I was joking, but someone did freeze to death." Then I thought, "I hope the guy with the donuts shows up soon."

I was kind of a jerk back then.
(gbehh www.murraythenut.com, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 8:36, Reply)

Dead Body
Went to an open-casket funeral a few years ago.
Oddly enough, the dead bloke's surname was Body.
(mudskipper, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 8:34, 2 replies)

Not seen one, was one.
Thought I'd save this till later on in the week, as I can easily count this as the most traumatic things in my life, so read on, dear B3tan.
Back in the nasty winter of 2003, I began to have chest pains, as I managed to live the life of a slob, just going to a nice easy job, slobbing about in the evenings in front of TV or PC, and smoking easily 30 full fat cigarettes a day. Not an enviable lifestyle for remaining healthy really, is it?
Cue the 12th November. I thought I had a chest infection, and had been off work 3 days, and was kind of feeeling ok-ish, watched Alfie Moon save Kat from getting married to some gangster (yes, it was THAT day), and relaxed with a whisky and sat down to watch Johnny English (a film I cannot recommend to anyone).
And then the pain in my chest started, and the feeling sick. Thought it was just a bit of heartburn at first, then I can't stand up, sweating, and the feeling in my chest of what Richard Pryor called "Don't you move, fucker"- basically, someone grabbing in the middle of your chest & twisting. And believe me, it hurts- REALLY hurts.
So an ambulance is called, which eventually turns up. The medic seemed to be a bit dubious of what was wrong with me, asked me first if I'd taken Viagra, to which I quite strongly answered in the negative. He then said "well, we can take you in, but its 10:30 on a friday evening, so its going to be very busy, so are you really sure you are feeling that bad?" Errr- yes, I don't call an ambulance out for a laugh, you know. So they toodle me off to A&E, and advise me its going to be busy, so they'll pop me in resus, which is where my luck started.
I'm popped into said area, and many probes are stuck upon my person, and all seems ok, my kindly nurse asks if I'm still in pain- yes, it is getting worse. Would I like some morphine? Oh yes ta, I'll have a double on the rocks, but hold the olives. She then starts to fill up a syringe to put it in the canula on my left hand, and I say "that acted quick, I feel woozy already"- only she hadn't put it in yet.
She said later I just suddenly flatlined- complete cardiac arrest (myocardial infarction for you medical types out there), and they were immediately defibrillating me to attempt to bring me round. Somehow they also put a drug in me called Retoplase, which clears any blockages (Dyno-Rod for the arteries), and after 3 minutes I started beating again and breathing. What did I feel? I can remember being woozy, and saying so to the nurse. The next thing I remember is that horrible pins and needles all over body feeling you get if you stand up too quick after kneeling down for ages, and waking up to loads of people around me, and feeling embarrased as I had made that snorty noise, which I thought meant I'd fallen asleep, and had woken up with a start.
Shall I answer the inevitable question? No, there was no bright light. No looking down on my body. Nothing. Just that. Sorry, Godly people.
*Insert pun on length here*
( Duke Of Belmsford has got 99 records, but Jay-Z ain't one, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 7:04, 5 replies)

Back by popular demand is my girlfriend the former morgue employee
from here

After asking her for her best morgue stories, this is what she deemed the "Perfect Murder" story...

Her: "The perfect murder story was a woman's body washed up in Lady's Island Lake... we were pretty sure she had been raped but we couldn't be sure, because the entire body was soaked in bleach. For at least a day."
Me: "Fucking hell"
Her: "Her eyelids had been sitting in bleach so long that they had become almost transparent, even when they were closed you could see her irises."
Me: "Fuck me! Agh!"
Her: "And this is the best part; the SAE kit was inconclusive, because she had been subjected to a delightful post mortem douche. There wasn't a spot of evidence on her because the bleach ate it all away."

Finally I gave the typical b3ta-male response: "Man, rape takes a lot of effort."

Her response: "It was disturbing and horrible. But eerily beautiful."

Sometimes I wonder about her.
( AgentMuu hentai coordination, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 6:00, 2 replies)

Not 100% certain if i've seen a dead body before
but i've watched someone die;

Coventry Airshow, 2002 I believe it was. Replica wooden high winged aircraft takes off, I watch it climb upwards, then at about 500 metres or so the left wing snaps off. The wing flutters down, as does the rest of the aircraft including the right down, spiralling down like one of those 'helicopter' leaves. Unfortunately the aircraft landed on top of, and fell into, an industrial building, and the pilot later died of his injuries.

I also watched a 1950s race car lose control, hit the wall of the track at approximately 90 degrees, the car leaps into the air spinning sideways as it does so, and the driver is thrown out of it, lands in the middle of the track lifeless. Luckily, a track marshall got him to his feet and he escaped with very minor injuries

Both left me shocked but I wouldn't call it traumatic - since the airshow crash i've flown several historic aircraft and i'm going into an aviation career, despite several escapes from death due to aviation, but that's another story...

I've seen two what could be bodies before - once in London as a child with my family, someone lying on the pavement with a police officer calling for an ambulance, and a few years back an old man being put into an ambulance who looked fairly deceased
( Bobson I who milks the milkmen?, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 1:01, Reply)

Holiday in Cambodia (Well Bangladesh actually)
...its rough boy, but its life!

For some reason thought Bangladesh might be a nice change from New Zealands cool, clean, unsmelly countryside.
Stayed in a 'hotel' of sorts in Dakkar (I thought it was spelt Dakha? - Carol tells me I'm wrong!)
....anyway, after getting over the shock of being escorted off the plane by armed blokes (they just dont get any tourists we are told!) and were unsure how to welcome a Kiwi lad and Canadian girl who were travelling together, but horror of horrors were neither married nor brother or sister - bless their wee muslim hearts. So after being hijacked by some dodgy blokes in a Taxi were taken to a dodgy hotel somewhere in a very dodgy part of the city. Well the next morning having ensured various organs are still on holiday with us we go on to the (exreamly dodgy) belcony to take in the 'views' - ie the slum that runs along side the railway track.
Noticing a small, maybe a dozen group, people looking at something, I goes down to see whats so interesting. Of couse its the body of a woman thats been run over by a train. What was more surreal was that the group was very keen for me to take their photo with the corpse.
Which i did and still have the picture somewhere (I should find it and post it on b3ta). This happended at about 7.am - well at about 4.30pm a little man on a rickshaw came along and picked up the mangled body, roughly throwing the extra body bits that had broken off after the train had passed over her into a sack, and peddled off. It was all of about 45c, so she would have started to smell I would have thought.
That was only the start of weird holiday experiances in Asia - saw bodies being burnt in India (Varranasi) but they certainly didnt encourage photo's there (I took a few anyway - leave only footprints (and beer cans) Take only Photo's (and the piss)

Probably a little boring, dont really know why I bothered.

Cheers
Another train Driver (this one in Outback Aussie)
(Kalgoorlie, Mon 3 Mar 2008, 23:22, 2 replies)

While swiming
Alarm went off, everyone out the pool.

Lady who was swiming had a heart attack, died by the side of the pool. Can't have been more than in her 40's.

The life guards, some of whom I had gone to school with, were great, got her out the pool quickly, performed CPR, and kept everyone out of the way. Was very disappointed when the local newspaper suggested they may not have acted fast enough.

Not a particularly jolly story really.
(UranusHertz is interested in astronomy and electronics, Mon 3 Mar 2008, 23:06, 1 reply)

Capital Punishment?
O.K - Last 'train driver sees *another* dead body' story...

Was working the night shift in the depot, making sure all those nice trains are in the right places and the cleaners can get to all the McWrappers, half empty Stella cans and needles people seem to leave on the train, when the phone goes just before midnight. Rather annoyed (because if the phone goes at that time on a Saturday night it usually means the pizza delivery boy can't find the depot) I answer only to find the signaller on the other end.

"There's been a fatality at ****. There's a block on (no trains allowed) and the current is isolated (no electricity either). Can you get anyone down there to assist?"

Weighing up the prospect of no takeaway this night shift - I call up my two colleagues who are sleeping in various places around the depot (athough not sleeping *together*, just incase anyone asks) and get them to meet me for the walk down to the station.

As we wander down, we can see the blue flashing lights on the bridge and can hear alot of screaming and shouting. There's a train stopped about a quater of a mile ahead of us as we walk up the track and quite a few members of the emergency services milling about.

And that's when I saw it - a guys head. On it's own. complete down to the lower jaw - then a bit of blood then nothing - just lying on the track at the end of the platform.

It was at this point all three of us agreed that maybe the delayed pizza was a *good* thing.

Short story was that, in an alley outside one of the many quality nightclubs in the area, the now deceased had tried to attack a young lady who was slightly the worse for drink. On screaming, a few of the local hardmen had rounded the corner, saw what was going on and threatened pain to the would-be rapist - who promptly legged it, hopped over a wall, ran across a platform and jumped down onto the track in a bid to escape. Only to be hit by a rather large, fast and heavy express train.

Me being the 'innocent until proven guilty' kind of guy felt sort of sorry for the dead bloke until it was later revealled (via DNA testing) that said gentleman was wanted in connected with a number of sexual assults in the area.

Death by the 23:11 express service anyone?
( HSDriver was probably still at work on, Mon 3 Mar 2008, 22:47, 4 replies)

Sky Funeral
In Tibet a few years ago we attended a sky funeral. When your country (well, autonomous region) is perched 4km is the air with the ground almost permanently frozen, it can be difficult to bury people.

Instead, at certain sites, bodies are prepared (skin sliced and rubbed with some kind of muesli concoction). They are then left for the vultures to eat. Hygienic *and* green.

So we were co-opted by the grieving relatives (who have trekked for days to get to one of the sites) into, well, basically preventing the vultures from starting to chow down before the bodies had been prepared.

If you've never seen a hundred vultures up close (close enough to touch) it is a startling site. The birds are so pumped up they start to try and eat each other. They gaze intelligently and calculatingly at every slight gap, sizing up the weak points on the line and closing in until you rush at them. Oh yes, and they're huge things; bigger than a child.

Still, this is welcome respite from the grisly scene behind: yellow bloated bodies being slashed around like big wobbling creme caramels.

But finally the bodies are ready and the vultures are allowed through. Thus follows a seething mass of hundreds of vultures ripping and tearing flesh. Memorable scenes include:

1. Vulture exits stage left with a hand in its mouth, rest of mostly-eaten arm snaking along behind pursued by, well, some more vultures.

2. A head popping out of the seething mass and rolling along the ground, bobbing jauntily as if it were a beachball for the Adams family.

The whole thing lasted about 2 minutes before all of the bodies were picked clean and the vultures moved onto coffee and cigars. This is all true; apart from the coffee and cigars.

I've still not decided how I feel about it.
(oxbow_lakes, Mon 3 Mar 2008, 22:40, 11 replies)

Charlie
When I was younger, we'd had a dog called Charlie, he was amazing, didn't really know how to do anything, barked alot, but he was great fun.

We'd had him for years, he'd been at three of the houses we've lived at over the years and when we moved to the most recent one, he started being ill quite often.

We took him to a vet, who said they didn't know what was wrong, and to find out what it was, we would need to do an x-ray, which none of us could afford, as x-rays for animals were rather overpriced, anyway, we got some medicine for him, and he dutifully ate it whenever he was given it, we took him for walks, spent alot of time with him, then one night, me and my brother were sat in the living room, Charlie sat on the sofa with us, he jumps down and stand in the middle of the room, his legs start getting unsteady so he lies down. He falls on his side and stopped breathing. It was heart breaking, we had always had him around, and we were sat in the same room as him when he died. I still miss him.

R.I.P Charlie.
(annhialus hasn't had an accident since, Mon 3 Mar 2008, 21:44, Reply)

An old homeless man.
Down in wee-ish lil Cork, in a wee lil village called Ballycotton resides I. It's quite a long ways from any decent places, but i'll sometimes make my way down to Cobh with anyone interested to do a bit of shopping.

Two missed fucking buses later and me and this girl named Sian are stranded in the in-betweens of the nearby villages. So when walking along the paths to get to the nearest bus station, we saw (Although i think smelt would come first) a large tramp supposedly having a kip on a bench, nothing special really.

Tum de dum de dum... A normal day by anyones standards, Sian precedes to walk home before me. A few hours later i get home, couple more and i get a phone call. That old man was seen rushed to hospital after O.D'ing on various drugs. So this guy was either dead or dying, and we did'nt so much as give him a second glance. =(
(Tokyo Bought those damned magic beans on, Mon 3 Mar 2008, 21:35, Reply)

There was this once...
My great-uncle died.

I'd only seen him a few times when he was alive, as his wife (my grandmother's sister) was an antisocial sod, and didn't like us. For years I thought it was us, but it turns out she hated everyone.

Anyway, she died. Then he became poorly. I managed to get to see him a couple of times before he died. He was a lovely chap, really. I overheard him telling my Dad what a good chap I'd turned into. (If only he knew, eh?)

So... the point? Well, after he'd died, we had to clean his house out. My Dad, my brother and I drove down in this completely shit Luton van, and set to.

Part of the way through the day, I happened across a small blue tin. Naturally, being of the mildly curious type, I opened the tin.

"Ewwwwwwwwwwww!" I emote. In it was his false teeth, now somewhat mouldy from neglect. I quickly slam the lid back on. From behind, I hear the familiar noise of my Dad pissing himself laughing.

When he recovered, my Dad said that he'd done the same thing too. There was only one possible course of action left!

That's right, dear reader - I left the tin cunningly concealed for my brother to find. It wasn't long before we heard "EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" echo through the house. He'd found it. We'd have told him to get over it... but we were too busy laughing.

He's yet to forgive me.

On a happier note, I'm sure he'd have laughed hysterically himself if he'd seen it. And we found letters we'd written him as small children, carefully folded away.

Does that count as *part* of a dead body?
(purplegod counting down for Christmas!, Mon 3 Mar 2008, 20:50, 1 reply)

No dead bodies but it wasn't for the want of trying
Having had my hair cut at the same place from the age of four until fairly recently my local barbers has seen quite a few changes of staff. In fact barring the owner, each and every other member of staff has changed. As you would expect.

Cue Bob the hairdressers 60th birthday. Thinking about it now 20 or so dolled up current and former hairdressers (blonde hair, big tits etc.)shouting surprise at you in a darkened room would probably make a healthy man's heart twitch but Bob is a man who likes his food and his brandy.

I'm sure you can see where this is going.

"Surprise" shout the hairdressers.

"urgrgrrg hahahhahrhrh" says Bob in a Grandpa Simpson stylee before collapsing holding onto his chest.

He was fine after a couple of days in hospital.




Length ? Short back and sides and a bit choppy on top.
(kickstandrich last had sex with your mum/sister/wife/daughter on, Mon 3 Mar 2008, 20:03, Reply)

A Christmas story with three dead bodies
If one intends to live by the James Dean rules of live - viz. live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse -, anaphylactic shock may not be the solution of one's choice, unless of course one's idea of good-looking is with a tormented expression on the face, covered with rashes and hives, in some cases at least covered in one's own vomit and generally an unpleasant sight to behold.

Last Christmas eve was spent with my family, as tradition dictates. It was a pleasant enough affair, cue turkey (that's one of the three dead bodies down), port and the usual extended family catching-up discourse which everyone was deeply immersed in, so nobody really paid attention when a rather ghostly wheezing/coughing sound started to emanate from one of the seats. Up until, that is, the people around the poor chap realised that he did not choke on a leftover fragment of the dead bird's furcula (that's the wishbone for those of you less anatomically aligned) but was in fact going into anaphylactic shock.

At which point, to use that time-honoured colloquialism for situations like the presently described, shit was regarded to have hit the fan.

Anaphylaxis is a catastrophic allergic reaction that results from the body releasing large amounts of a mediator substance, histamine, in response to a protein it is hypersensitive to. As a result, a number of classical allergic reactions happen (hives, rashes, anxiety, abdominal cramping, lachrymation &c.), but that's less critical than the joint effect of two facts, namely, first, that histamine causes blood vessels to dilate, which in turn results in a sharp drop in blood pressure, which in turn causes a strain on the heart by demanding it to beat faster to keep the shop open (reflex tachycardia), second, that it causes soft tissue to swell up and block the airways and suffocate the victim. Now without circulation and breathing, things are not generally going well for people.

Anaphylaxis is reversible by drugs, most importantly by adrenaline (not into the heart, though, this isn't Pulp Fiction). Epinephrine was duly administered by the poor chap's mother, a former medical professional, but to reasonably little avail - so little, in fact, that when the EMTs arrived, the chap went into full-blown circulatory collapse. It took them almost a minute and half to revive him and get his heart to do a normal sinus rhythm again. He was, literally, dead for more than a minute. A dead body.

And you know what? That chap was me.

I awoke a few hours later in the ICU, trying to breath and trying to think

As a sidenote, I have not had anything that would be regarded as a near-death experience. I awoke in a hospital room a few hours later, still struggling to breath and drugged up to my eyeballs. The following time was a bit of a haze, but I remember an old lady in a surrounding bed, in a rather bad state. I made a few phone calls and then went back to what amounted to sleep among the given circumstances. It was fitful and restless.

When, on the next day, I was wheeled out the ward, I saw the old lady's bed empty. She died overnight.
(adelie discovered the joys of a board sig on, Mon 3 Mar 2008, 19:53, 2 replies)

Almost
Surprise party for a 90 year old, we took bets on how the ambulance would take.
She didn't die but it was close.
(shake'n'bake Tally Ho, Biatch!, Mon 3 Mar 2008, 19:36, Reply)