#FuneralFactFriday: Hell Money

The colloquial name for a form of Joss paper (incense paper), printed to resemble legal tender bank notes.

Rooted in Asian culture, the fake currency is burned as an offering to the deceased in hopes of prosperity in the afterlife. Loose bundles are often placed inside caskets prior to cremation.

In this context, Hell represents the afterlife in general and does not have the unpleasant connotation that Western culture associates with it.

#FuneralFactFriday: Joseph-Ignace Guillotin
Born May 28, 1738 (Saintes, France)
Died March 26 1814 (not executed)
Buried: Pere Lachaise Cemetery

Many assume that Monsieur Guillotin invented the guillotine. He did not!

He was actually a physician who OPPOSED the death penalty. Executions at that time were gruesome and prolonged: axes and swords (reserved for nobility) often took several blows, hanging (for commoners) relied on lengthy asphyxiation rather than instantly breaking the neck, and it was highly unpleasant to be boiled, dismembered, broken on a Catherine Wheel, or burned at the stake. His attempts to abolish capital punishment failed, so he instead proposed a more humane method: fast and painless decapitation by simple mechanism.

Guillotin wrote a six point proposal to encourage a fairer system (it also discouraged crowds from hungrily watching public executions by making them boring):

1) All punishments for the same class of crime shall be the same, regardless of the criminal (i.e., there would be no privilege for the nobility)

2) When the death sentence is applied, it will be by decapitation, carried out by a machine

3) The family of the guilty party will not suffer any legal discrimination

4) It will be illegal to anyone to reproach the guilty party's family about his/her punishment

5) The property of the convicted shall not be confiscated

6) The bodies of those executed shall be returned to the family if so requested

His proposals were accepted, becoming law in 1792. The beheading device was invented by the King's physician (Antoine Louis) and a German engineer (Tobias Schmidt). Use of the guillotine in France continued until its abolition in 1981, with the last execution having been performed in 1977.

A letter published in 1795 cast doubt on the effectiveness of the guillotine. It claimed that victims survived for several minutes after being beheaded, though the only evidence is anecdotal & not supported by medical science. Unfortunately, Guillotin suffered knowing that rumor & regretted sharing his name with the device.

#FuneralFactFriday: Full Body Casket Burial at Sea

Did you know you don’t have to be cremated to get thrown in the ocean???

Full bodies can be buried at sea in caskets! It’s not limited to folks serving in the Navy or other military branches. Anyone can do it (not like Dexter, please hire a legit funeral director who knows how to do it properly).

There are a few requirements. If a casket is used, it needs to be stainless steel and have all the plastic inside removed. Twenty holes (2” diameter) are drilled through the casket to facilitate flooding and air venting. The casket must be secured shut with six durable stainless steel bands, chains, or natural fiber rope. Sand or concrete weights are added (no lead) to help the casket sink and stay put. Ultimately it’ll turn into a reef.

If a casket is not used, the EPA recommends a weighted biodegradable shroud. You may also toss flowers or floral wreaths into the water with the body, as long as all materials are decomposable.

A private boat is hired to take the casket, funeral director, and a few guests out to sea. They must travel at least 3 nautical miles from shore and release the casket into water a minimum of 600’ deep. If the boat regularly performs burials at sea, they might have a platform with rollers to get the casket out into the water with a push and a sploosh. A final yeet into the deep.

No special permission is required, short of filing standard paperwork like a death certificate and disposition permit. The EPA must be notified within 30 days. If it does happen to be performed by the military, there’s no family present to witness. It’s just handled on a regularly scheduled deployment.

Would you be interested in a full body burial at sea???

#FuneralFactFriday: The Bathroom Bermuda Triangle, aka the Triangle of Doom or the Triangle of Death

This is a phenomenon observed by EMTs, paramedics, and mortuary removal drivers in which a person (living or dead) manages to slip into the area between the toilet, bathtub, and wall while having a medical crisis.

People end up dying on or next to toilets due to a variety of reasons. They might feel that something is “off,” and head to the bathroom to see if their morning constitutional makes them feel better. Sometimes it’s a heart attack, aneurysm, or aortic dissection, often brought about by straining too hard or inadvertently using the Valsalva maneuver. Victims can trigger vasovagal syncope and pass out from the sudden drop in heart rate and blood pressure. If they bonk their head or get wedged in an unnatural way, they can expire from a head injury or positional asphyxia. Others are lost to overdose or choking on vomit.

Due to the natural size constraints of most bathrooms, it’s extraordinarily difficult to extract an uncooperative person once they become wedged in that spot. To make matters worse, these situations usually involve blood or other body fluids. Medical situations like this often turn fatal since victims in distress aren’t usually discovered quickly enough, plus lifesaving measures are difficult to render if the person is tightly wedged or worse, laying unconscious in a way that blocks the bathroom door from opening.

Do your local medical and funeral professionals a favor: if you feel faint while on the throne, try and fall *away* from the Triangle.

#FuneralFactFriday: Bodies Can Turn GREEN

Yes, it’s true, and not just on St. Patrick’s Day. It happens when a person with jaundice is embalmed using high index formaldehyde fluids.

Jaundice is a yellow discoloration found in both living and dead people. It's caused by a buildup of bile pigments in the skin, eyes, bodily fluids, and tissue, often resulting from problems with the liver, gallbladder, or pancreas. A person with liver failure, cirrhosis, or hepatitis is often yellow tinged.

During embalming, formaldehyde can change the yellow bilirubin into green biliverdin. It can range from mild to moderate to extreme. Special embalming fluids (like glutaraldehyde) exist to help mitigate the color issues, but the primary concern is preservation. Color correction is secondary. If the color can’t be addressed with proper fluids and internal dyes, we can use cosmetics and colored lighting to help mask the green.

Fun fact: old school embalmers perpetuated a belief that we could flush jaundiced bodies with milk before injecting embalming fluid. That’s just preposterous. Don’t do that!

#FuneralFactFriday: Bagpipes At Funerals

Why do we play bagpipes at funerals, especially for police officers and firefighters?

Bagpipes have roots among the Scottish, Irish, and Celtic (plus others!), and were routinely played at weddings, wakes, and dances. When large groups immigrated to the United States after the Great Potato Famine of the 1800s, they brought their cultural traditions with them.

When they arrived, they were met with prejudice. Unfortunately, many Scottish and Irish men were forced into difficult, dangerous jobs like policing and firefighting. Work related deaths were common. The fallen were honored with the traditions of their homeland, which included mournful bagpipe music. The hauntingly beautiful melodies allowed the normally stoic men to shed their tears.

Over time, police officers and firefighters from different heritages began to request bagpipes too. They liked the solemn dignity of the instrument and the unity it created within their departments. They even developed uniformed bands of pipers, known as Emerald Societies (an homage to the Emerald Isles). Many of the bands have over 60 members!

Bagpipe music has also been adapted for military services and funerals of every day people. We've assimilated the tradition into our cultural melting pot of funeral customs. Bagpipers can be hired to play old standards like Amazing Grace and Oh Danny Boy, or a limited range of popular songs (the instruments have nine notes with no sharps or flats). Sign me up for AC/DC's Thunderstruck!

#FuneralFactFriday: Fantasy Coffins of Ghana

Hey new friends! Here’s what happens: I post fun facts about death and funeral related topics, especially on certain themed days. For the past couple weeks, I’ve accidentally on purpose tied all of my posts to cats (Not literally, don’t ever tie anything to a cat). Sooo, here’s a cat-shaped coffin!

For the past 70 years, master carpenters in Ghana have custom built “figurative” coffins. Families choose a theme based on their loved one's occupation, hobbies, personality, or symbolism from proverbs. You want to be buried in a lobster? They can do that!

The tradition began in the 1950s when the village chief commissioned a palanquin shaped like a cacao pod (it’s a fancy enclosed platform with handles so people can carry you — very fancy). Unfortunately, the chief died before it was finished. The villagers opted to use it as a coffin after parading his body around town in a procession.

The idea caught on. Other chiefs and priests were similarly honored, then regular folks began to request specially made coffins. The idea is for dead people to remember something of themselves in the afterlife and to highlight their social status.

Carpenters and their apprentices hand carve the special shapes from local wawa trees, usually taking about 2-6 weeks to complete. Urgent orders can be completely faster if several carpenters work together. A fantasy coffin usually sells for about $1000, but for perspective, the people buying them are typically earning about $3 a day!

Popular designs include airplanes, animals (family totems), Coca Cola bottles, shoes, cellphones, luxury cars, fish, and Bibles. If you do a Google image search, they’re fascinating to see! Which one would YOU choose???

#FuneralFactFriday: I missed posting this yesterday because, uhhh newborn kittens, obvs. However, today is National Battery Day, which brings me to this lesson: pacemaker batteries explode it cremated!

Pacemakers must be removed from bodies prior to cremation because their batteries will explode (damaging the chamber and/or injuring the operator).

Pacemakers are easily removed by funeral staff and can be recycled, refurbished, and sanitized. Since the FDA prohibits reuse in the USA, they can either be implanted in dogs or sent to impoverished countries.

#FuneralFactFriday: Defrosting graves is a real thing

As a resident of Southern California, severe winter weather means bundling up when the temperature dips below 65°F. It's recently come to my attention that there are parts of the country that have to literally defrost graves before digging.

It's not the snow that matters so much as the frost. When the ground itself is frozen, it can add hours or days of backbreaking physical labor to the gravedigging process. It's dangerous for employees (injuries, frostbite, hypothermia, and heart attacks), equipment can break, and sometimes it's just too stormy to even try.

In some places, winter burials are simply postponed until the ground thaws. Bodies are temporarily kept either in refrigeration or mausoleum holding vaults. Unfortunately, it means a delay of closure for the family and forces them to relive their loss again at a later date.

The good news is that technological advancements are making it slightly easier to thaw and dig into frozen graves. We can use jackhammers. There are also special tool attachments for the backhoe, called "frost teeth." We can warm and thaw the ground using propane powered burners or industrial electric blankets.

If none of that works for you, do what I do and live in an area where this situation never even crosses your mind!

Looking to follow people with startlingly unusual content? That's me!

I'm a funeral director and embalmer turned writer and educator. I love teaching others about dead bodies and funerals, but in a light and easy to understand way. I want to help mitigate fear and stigma through open discussion. Ask me anything! (Bonus: if you're a writer, I can totally help set your scenes and ensure accuracy!)

I try to share themed posts like #MondayMourning, #WordyWednesday, and #FuneralFactFriday. I also love books, memes, cats, dogs, dinosaurs, trash cats, welding, and demolition derby driving.

So I'm a bit all over the place, but guaranteed to be one of the most interesting people around!