Gerrard Kaonga
A mortician answered a whole host of people’s burning questions when it comes to death, including what happens to the body when we die.
Death is about the only guarantee in life, and as morbid as it seems, we have all kinds of questions about it.
Some of those questions are spiritual, regarding what happens to us when we die, but some people are more curious what happens to the body when our soul is no longer there.
Mortician and funeral director Victor M. Sweeney sat down with Ladbible Stories and answered a slew of questions that had been submitted in the ‘honesty box’.
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While getting into the nitty gritty of what he does, he answered one of the most pressing questions when it comes to death; what happens to the body in the first 24 hours.
While most people are aware that the body starts to decompose immediately after death, the speed at which can vary massively, according to Sweeney.
He explained: “So this is called the post-mortem interval.
“The time between when somebody dies and maybe when I pick them up, or maybe between death and cremation or death and embalming.
“Embalming delays that decomposition process.
“So in that 24 hours, given the environment, things can go very fine or go very, very wrong.”
He noted that in one case a person who had been dead for over 24 hours had been found in rather good condition, compared to how rapidly the body can change.
He continued: “I have had times when somebody was found two days later, but they were in a pretty controlled climate, a cooler room, no big deal.
“But the blood likes to settle, that is what they call livor mortis, so it settles to the bottom of the body.
“Also, given some more time and the conditions, it’ll congeal, and it becomes this kind of like jellylike substance.
“And that’s kind of icky, but it all depends, it’s so variable. There’s just no way to really say that there's a set thing that happens at 24 hours, cause it’s all about the environment and the person.”
Sweeney did also go into more details regarding the importance of embalming, and how it attempts to slow the decomposing process.
He did note that after a person dies, there body isn’t necessarily dangerous, though explained the body starts to behave differently.
He added: “When we die our bodies start to break down, in the span of even an hour after death, all those bacteria that are in your gut that help you digest food they run wild because there is no immune system to suppress them.
“Give that a couple days, let’s say while we wait for a funeral to happen, unchecked, those bacteria cause the body to bloat or turn green or the skin to slough off."