Real stories about the profession of a nurse. Stories from the Morgue: Why the Dead Explode

The shift starts at 7 o'clock in the morning with a discussion of the day's plan in a small coffee shop. One of the employees, having taken a special cart, went to the basement to bring fresh arupas.
Today a new one started to work, he used to be a cleaner. After four to six weeks of training, he will be able, among other things, to skin corpses and tear off bones.
7.15. The section is prepared, the corpses are delivered from the refrigerator, measured and weighed. Final preparations for the work of the pathologist. The doctor from section 14 asked us yesterday to prepare his brain. Sometimes doctors ask us if we can then make a so-called “retro package” for them - with kidneys, genitals, bladder, although they know that we are forbidden to do this.
7.45. Sister Gerda calls from the eye hospital: “Do you have any material?” Yes, we have. This is an older man. 41 years old, who died at night due to a stomach ailment. You can "work" with it.
8.00. Pathologists have arrived. Everyone has an assistant. After an external examination, a large incision is made. The brain is placed separately in a special bucket, and the intestines - in a bowl.
9.45. There is still a spine. In order to “disassemble” it, you have to resort to a hammer and a chisel.
10.50. A contractual “seizure” for the eye clinic begins: one doctor, who came specially for this, takes out both eyes, and inserts glass ones in their place so that the relatives of the deceased do not have any questions. This is an extremely urgent accident. In one clinic, a person hopes that doctors will save his eyes with the help of the cornea.
11.10. Ready after autopsy and research, the remains of the dead can be collected again. If there is time and desire, we make good seams. If by this time the “customer” can already come, then everything is done hastily and the internal organs can not be put into the corpse.
11.20. The chief of the nearby Institute of Forensic Medicine needs an assistant to travel. It always brings an additional fee. You may need to take the shell of the brain with you.
11.45. The phone rings again. The driver of a pharmacological company is ready to come in the afternoon to pick up the shell of the brain.
14.50. The neighboring university clinic takes away the agreed batch of brains: the driver, as always, pays. The money goes into the pocket of the orderlies.
15.30. End of the working day. I can't get the last corpse out of my head. Accident. A man, a peasant, was hit by a car…”
Once a week, a white Volkswagen Passat pulls up to the city clinic in Kassel and hides in one of the side entrances. The driver goes down to the basement. He friendly greets the head of the administrative and economic department, explains: "I arrived for the goods." The clinic staff is well aware that this man bought various organs of the human body, which the head of the pathology department calls "garbage". On one of his visits, he takes 40 brain membranes prepared by the clinic as a result of autopsies. All of them are packed in a container of the company “B. Brown." Right there, in plastic tubes - the blood of the dead. Of these human, as the doctor says, "scum", the pharmaceutical company "B. Brown manufactures an expensive medical product used in skin grafting. “Until next time,” says the driver of the white Volkswagen as he says goodbye. Taking the "goods", he leaves the doctors 1,200 marks in cash, i.e. each shell of the brain cost "B. Brown" in 30 German marks. The same is happening throughout Germany. Helpers of orderlies receive additional earnings from 300 to 500 marks per month in the trade in human organs.
Without waiting for the adoption of a new law on transplantation, the Berlin Land Court warned doctors: if facts of unreasonable autopsy were revealed, as well as deliberate deviations from the necessary actions during operations, then doctors would be sued for disturbing the peace of the deceased.
The morgue is entered in different ways. Death is met differently. Some are surrounded by relatives, others are in a sewer well or on a door frame. For some, death is deliverance from torment, for others it is a blow of fate. The mortuary welcomes everyone - young and old, rich and poor, loved ones and abandoned, everyone - equally impartially.
- ... Why did you come to us on Thursday? - asks the orderly Sasha. - To understand what's what, it was necessary on Monday morning. Firstly, they don't open it on weekends. Secondly (not only Sasha noticed this), they take their own lives on weekdays less often than on weekends. Loneliness or excessive drinking is to blame: who knows?
Suicides are opened with special care. What if this is murder? That's the expertise to dot the "i". Even if the body is cut by an electric train, the remains will still be opened “using technology”. And Sasha will again lament that it is “extra work” - to open the skull of someone who left a “wet place” after the electric train.
It is understood that the orderly of the mortuary, like a turner at the machine, must keep his tool ready and in good order. Sasha understands this. Otherwise, the “hitch with the head” will come out. It is best to avoid interruptions. And I would like to relax after the next autopsy, but relatives outside the door will not let me “forget”. They do not understand the "specifics" of the morgue. As if by agreement, they arrive in cars for the bodies of their relatives from the very morning. And they demand to give them a death certificate and a body immediately. Immediately - not possible. The doctor-expert at the autopsy is one, and the dead are many. An autopsy is the same operation, and it requires a lot of time and effort.
Living in anticipation behave differently. Someone is crying quietly. And who, seeing a closed window in the reception, sticks himself “up to his chest” and, seeing the receptionist drinking tea, yells: “What, you still eat here?”
Experts working here, orderlies and other employees of the morgue are not offended by the "live". As far as possible, they try to "serve". You can’t speed up the autopsy, but the process of dressing the deceased, laying him in the coffin has been brought to automatism.
If the elevator is working, there will be no hitch with the rise of the gurney with the corpse. But the elevator, like other equipment of the morgue, has worn out over many years of operation and often refuses to “serve”. Then the nurses have to "serve". They go down to the basement, roll out the desired corpse from behind a massive door (like from a crypt) covered with a flannelette blanket, and manually drag it upstairs. Each time, remembering with a “kind” word the designers who conceived two turns on the stairs, which cannot be overcome either on a stretcher or on a stretcher. Only by hand, with the body overweight.
And if this body decomposed, swollen? The orderlies have one task: to take out the “mass” packed in a bag so that it does not spread on the road. Otherwise, you won’t manage to clean up the hassle, but you will need another bag for the remains. It does not reach the “spreading” of bodies in the morgue. These are taken out of sewer wells, basements, drainpipes or from attics.
"Spoiled" was brought with me. The jacket has been preserved. And sneakers. It's better not to look at the rest. And experts have to work with such “material”. According to the full opening program. Perhaps the poor fellow will be identified by the sneakers. Or over a jacket. But he will go on his last journey in a sack. What if they don't recognize you? After some time, he will lie in the ground ... under the registration number. Morgue employees will deliver it to the cemetery. This is a “free application” to the duties of the mortuary staff photographer - Svetlana. She will take pictures of the remains and accompany them to the place of burial, document everything and return to her direct duties.
- This is not a woman's work, - I say to Svetlana.
“Not female,” she agrees. But someone has to do it too. And in our morgue, no matter what job you take, you can’t say that you dreamed about it since childhood. I also came here by accident. I thought I'd work. Remained. Everything is like this with us: either they leave immediately, or they go nowhere. We understand that not everyone is “given” to work in the morgue. If you can, stay and carry this burden to the end...
Until the end of their days, expert doctors Vladimir Chetin, Genrikh Burak, Sergey Soroka did their job. None of them lived to see retirement. It only seems that they, working with what remains of a person after death, have become coarsened to the point of insensitivity. Doctor-expert Eduard Trukhan, who had just opened five adult corpses, “broke down” on the sixth, for children. He himself went out on this "call", he himself got the boy out of the noose, he himself opened the thin body.
...Children in the morgue are not uncommon. Children are dying too. From sickness. From our adult carelessness. By a freak accident. But every time a small body on a large "chopping" table is perceived as a personal tragedy. They are opened carefully. How alive. They dress and comb their hair as if they want to make amends for someone's fault.
Children's corpses rarely have to be lowered into the cold store. Inconsolable parents both bring and take away children from the morgue, as they say, as soon as, so immediately. But there was a case recently when the girl was not taken away for a whole week. The mother received a death certificate and sank into the water. I had to call the children's clinic so that someone would go and find out what was happening. We went. And there - the smoke is like a yoke, the parents received an allowance for the funeral of a child, they drink it away ...
Previously, this rarely happened - so that the dead were not taken away by relatives. Now every month - on several cases. Refuse, basically, from the elderly. They come to collect the death certificate. For allowance. And then look for the wind in the field. Morgue workers then call relatives, appeal to conscience. Sometimes it works. More often than not. They refer to the high cost, to old grievances. On the state, which is "obliged". Children refuse to bury their parents. Sisters - brothers. Brothers - sisters. “Rejectionists” are collected and taken to the cemetery by Svetlana. It happens that they then call the morgue to find out where the “expensive” grave is. More often than not.
Although sometimes this happens.
It was on Monday. The day, as they say, is difficult for a mortuary. There were so many corpses that there was nowhere to put them. That's what I had to sort. Those who were waiting for relatives behind the wall, the orderly laid on the tables, prepared for the autopsy. And the one who is unidentified - on the floor, under the washbasin. And then, out of nowhere, the guy runs in. Usually the door is locked, but here they forgot. He ran to one corpse, to another, Then he threw himself under the washstand. He grabbed the dead man, pressed him to himself, wept. It turns out that this is his father, who disappeared for two days. The guy was knocked off his feet, looking for. Found. Sasha felt uncomfortable. But what is his fault? There is no place to put the bodies. There is only one refrigerator in the morgue. Designed for ... six wheelchairs. There is also a second one, but the refrigeration equipment practically does not work in it. But it is also loaded “to the eyeballs”.
In the cold season and in the morgue it is cold. Corpses do not deteriorate. In summer, everything is different. The corpses are deteriorating before our eyes. A stink, a stench. Open windows don't help. How many curses and insults the mortuary workers listened to in those hot days! Relatives shouted, cried and left, and the employees here - from bell to bell. Is it easy?
Is it easy to sweep things and other rags of a homeless woman into a scoop? Employees sweep, wash, do everything that is supposed to. And then they take it to the trash bin, where the same homeless people are waiting in order to put on the stale clothes that have just been taken from the dead homeless man. Homeless people are in demand for any rags, so they are on duty at the morgue in the hope of “profiting”. This is how the infection spreads: from the dead to the living.
Mortuary, whatever it may be, you always leave with a heavy feeling. The one she spoke about is striking in its nudity. Not just lifeless, blue-shimmering bodies. The dead have no shame. And the living ones?

Phone call. I pick up the phone, and there:
- Did I end up in the morgue?
- They didn’t hit, but they called ... Hello ...
- Well, yes, yes ... I called. You know, my grandfather should be brought to you ...
-AND?
- Well, the ritual office took him away, took him out ... And we are collecting a blanket where he was lying ... and it is hot!
I smiled here, I say:
- Tell me your last name, I'll look at it.
Yes, of course [says his last name]. Look, I'll call you back!
Within 5 minutes, a representative of this office comes in. We have known each other for a long time, the man is very cheerful. And already quite drunk.
I told him:
- Volodya, such x @ ynya, you brought a living one, don’t fuck @ t, take it back, explain to your grandmother how you want why you took her living grandfather from her.
He begins to be baptized (an atheist, what to look for):
-Bl@...
At this, his meaningful phrase broke off. He looked at me, burst into wild obscene language, sent me to a certain male genital organ. In general, I issued, took the tag and went to the morgue (actually a morgue, a refrigerator). Looked grandfather, dead, real dead grandfather. Grandmother then called 6 times, three of them I talked, two were my partner and once another orderly who came to smoke herbs. These are the "live" people that are brought to us.

Summer. 4 am. Terribly dark night, no moon, the stars are invisible because of the clouds. Complete silence. Morgue.
Fulfilling my duty, I guard the sofa, sweetly hugging the pillow and wrapping myself in a blanket, looking at the seventh dream at such a late hour. Suddenly (more precisely, not at all suddenly), a figure in a black robe floats inaudibly past me. Being not a timid ten, having worked in the court for some time, I had to figure out that this was not some kind of ghost, ghost or soul of an innocently killed, but an ordinary person. But the subconscious animal fear took its toll. That night, I had more gray hairs in my beard (those who saw me closely remember the beard, and those who tried to pluck it know that there were two gray hairs). So, the body passed to the registration table, turned around and stood above me (I was lying on the sofa at that moment). A lump stood in my throat, a cramp cramped my cheekbones, the only thing I could say:
- Need a fuck?
To which a strange creature in a black robe replied:
- Give me my husband.
I am glad that before going to bed I went to the toilet. Seconds flowed like sticky sweat down his back and slowly along the luminous dial of the wall clock. I finally figured out what they want from me, the brainstorming was not in vain, my thoughts raced wildly - the doors of the first floor were closed!, I didn’t let anyone in!, the expert didn’t bring anyone in!, no one came in with the cops! A terrible night phenomenon turned out to be a woman drunk in poplars, climbing along a sheer wall onto the balcony of the second floor (in the afternoon we grilled kebabs there and therefore the door was open). That evening, her husband was brought from the pre-trial detention center. In general, the three of us, two orderlies and a forensic expert, persuaded her to leave the mortuary building. As a result, an investigator from the prosecutor's office arrived with an outfit and took her to a sobering-up station. That's how scary it is sometimes to wake up in the middle of the night at work.

Summer. Hot June evening. Kids from a nearby hostel indulge in setting fire to the poplar fluff that covers the ground with a thick carpet. By the way, who has not seen, a gorgeous sight - a rolling fiery wave! Work flows calmly, no excesses, everyone drinks beer, who is stronger - vodka. After many hours of silence, a hearse from one of the ritual agencies drives into the courtyard of the judicial morgue, carefully parks at the entrance, the drunk co-pilot falls out of the car into the insole (the driver does not drink), brings the police paper to the registry, puts on-duty signatures and goes to bring in the body. Naturally, accompanied by an employee of the court. They bring the body in, the orderly ties a tag, goes outside to smoke, looks into the car, and there ... Another body lies. Naturally, the questions are - what is it, where does it come from, why are there no papers. To which the "worms" ("worms" because the office is located on the Chervishevsky tract") answer that this is Shurik! heaps - Tajiks, come to Tyumen to work. All devout Muslims. To the question "Why do you touch the corpse with your bare hands?" Answers "Allah, the fall of krish never sees!" move his eyes." Well, this Shurik, due to his low body weight and weak resistance to alcohol, lay like a dead weight in the hearse. one shoe and a sock, tie a tag with the number "XXX" on it and go up further to drink beer / vodka and eat barbecue ... Due to the fact that the day, evening and night were quite quiet, the next corpse was brought already around midnight. Accompanied the transportation of the body of a young prosecutor's office investigator (I don't remember his last name now). She had to describe the injuries, clothing, posture of the victim. But! At that moment, when they brought the corpse they had brought into the building, Shurik wakes up to the swearing, clanging of iron doors!
The scene is a morgue, midnight, when people appear, one of the bodies rises, looks around with red, stunned eyes, stopping the look at the people who have just entered. What would you do? Yes, the cops, including the investigator of the prosecutor's office, did exactly the same thing - they left the stretcher with the corpse and ran out with a screech. Shurik, on the other hand, sat for another half a minute, took off his second shoe and went on to sleep.

Sunday. A little after noon. Call.
Nothing special, you need to deliver the body of the deceased grandmother from home to the morgue. The situation is ordinary, but the fact is that there are no cars. And relatives are in a hurry. I've been trying to find a car for 40 minutes, but it doesn't work. I call my relatives and explain that there is no hearse and will not be there for the next two or three hours. I give the number of the "worms", the relatives call back in a few minutes and say that the "Memorial" will not go, for some reason only known to them, and offers to come up with "something". By this she meant that we bring the body in our arms. Their house is located 300m from the office, one house away. Earlier, when I heard stories about the delivery of the body to the morgue by taxi, I thought, oh, nifiga, stories are being poisoned. Now I think - he himself has become a bike. Two guys in black jackets carry a body on a steel stretcher, wrapped in a blanket, as if in a cocoon. The people look around, the cars slow down, and my "colleague" and I have hysterical laughter, which there is no way to hold back urine. It’s not clear what amuses us, either the fact that we are in such a situation, or how it looks from the outside. The entire hostel, which stands next to the bureau, was staring at this procession with its entire residential side. And laughter, and sin, however.

On the eve of the New Year holidays, a case is remembered. It was almost three years ago, on the night of December 31st to January 1st. And as usual, the scene is a judicial morgue. Who does not know, the shift on duty consists of three people: a forensic medical expert (SME), an orderly on duty and a watchman. The duties of an expert are the most common - examining the dead on the spot (that is, posture, clothing, injuries), more often he only goes to the dead, even suicidal ones are brought to us without an examination by an expert. In general, the SME does not have a life, but a lafa. The task of the watchman is to turn on / off the lighting and open the doors. Well, sometimes - run to the store. Nurse - reception and registration of the dead. And now the New Year. The SME is not in place, he has long been seeing off the past year, fairly taking it on his chest so as not to be afraid of the new year. And the orderly with the watchman are sad. They drink beer, play backgammon, wait for the New Year... And then, lo and behold! Two lukewarm bodies collapse, with nowhere to go on a festive night. And, of course, the place where they will not be kicked out is work. Without thinking twice, they seduce the crested watchman into a vodka. Having crushed Nemiroff's liter bubble into three, they decide on an adventure. With all this - a nurse who misses (not for something specific, he just misses), does not drink at all. And what an adventure. They take a gurney (steel trolley, 180x60 cm in size, on disks with a radius of 7.5 cm), a height meter (a ruler 210 cm long), a blanket and a huge white sheet. They roll the gurney out into the street, put the largest one (watchman) on it, give a height meter in their hands, after wrapping a sheet in the form of a flag around it. And we went for a drive through the streets. The picture - two crazy bodies roll a gurney around the morgue with another crazy man, who at the same time waving a white flag and yelling chants, ranging from "CSKA - CHAMPION!", ending with "For the Motherland! For Stalin! To the dean's office!!". What is most interesting, when they were "driving" along the street, cars stopped several times and offered to take them in tow. True, only one proposal stunned them. Some small car stopped, and two smiling girls offered, "Boys, can you give me a ride?" The guys were speechless and almost dropped their battle flag. And the orderly, who alone, with himself, played backgammon and drank beer, many times answered the same question on the phone: "Are those yours there chasing Kotovsky and yelling ?!". Yes. These were ours. The most cheerful New Year in the Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination.

I am sure you will agree with me that the morgue is the darkest and most terrible place imaginable.
Lots of stories and anecdotes about the mortuary. And you don't know whether to believe them or not!
But with my neighbor there was a story related to the morgue, confirmed by both facts and witnesses.
My neighbor, Pyotr Mikhailovich Sirotkin, lived an ordinary old man's life with his wife Katerina. Mikhalych did not think about death, did not like to talk about it, and it seemed to him that death was something abstract and of little concern to him. But death comes to a person unexpectedly, when he does not expect it and does not think about it. So death came to Mikhalych unexpectedly!
One morning, Katerina wakes up her husband, but he does not wake up and does not show any signs of life. Katerina was frightened: the old man died in no way! She called an ambulance, and the doctor who arrived confirmed Mikhalych's death. A corpse truck also came and took the old man to the morgue for an autopsy.
Katerina grieved, lamented: “And why did they take it away, and why open it, because it’s so clear that Mikhalych died of old age!”
And everyone sympathized with Katerina and agreed with her. “Before, there was no such fashion to open old people!” - some said, while others reproached Katerina: “You should not have allowed the corpse truck to take Mikhalych away, because in the morgue they will gut him, and even demand money for it!”
Katerina sent telegrams to her son and daughter (they lived in other cities) and began to prepare for the funeral.
Meanwhile, Mikhalych's body lay on the table in the morgue and was waiting for the autopsy.
Mikhalych was supposed to be opened during the day, but the pathologist did not come to work: either he was ill, or he was severely hungover. This saved Mikhalych from premature death, but he had to go through terrible trials in the morgue.
Mikhalych doesn't like to think about the morgue, but somehow I managed to get him to talk, and not without the help of vodka.

Mikhalych's story

I woke up, opened my eyes and didn’t understand whether it was still night or already morning: it was dark, a dim light was breaking through from somewhere, and it was very cold, and it was somehow hard to lie down. I turned my head to my wife, I wanted to know if she was sleeping or already awake. And I see: next to me, instead of Katerina, an old woman lies, unfamiliar to me and for some reason naked. She lies on her back, her eyes are closed, and her arms are crossed on her chest. I got scared, I felt myself - and I'm naked! Where am I, I think, is it not in the morgue! I looked around and realized that we were not alone here with the old woman: in the distance on the table I saw several more human bodies, naked and with their arms crossed on their chests.
Well, here I have and all doubts have disappeared - I'm in the morgue!
I jumped off the table, as if scalded, and rushed to the doors, but the doors turned out to be closed.
I started knocking, screaming to let me out! Then I found out that the orderly on duty in the remote room was asleep and could not hear my cries.
I sat down at the door and burst into tears like a child. And so I sat at the door on the floor, shivering with fear and cold. I tried not to look at the dead and kept thinking: and how it managed to me, and I was not drunk, and I remember how Katerina and I finished watching the evening series and went to bed. And here you are - in the morgue, naked and with the dead!
And in the morning, I had another test! I hear, the old woman, with whom we were lying next to, began to make some sounds. I was afraid, but I looked at the old woman. And what happened next, I remember like a bad dream! The old woman suddenly trembled all over, wheezed and ... sat down! She is sitting on the table, her arms are crossed on her breasts, she is shaking her head, and her eyelid has lifted in her right eye, and with that eye she is looking at me. I wish I could take my eyes off her, but I feel like I can't control myself. And I notice: the old woman's lips began to twitch somehow, her mouth parted, and she wants to tell me something ... And I was seized with such horror that I lost consciousness. Then the pathologist explained to me: sometimes it happens with corpses, when they have not yet completely stiffened - some kind of muscle contracts in them and sets the body of the deceased in motion.
Well, I won’t tell how they found me in the morning on the floor at the door to the preparation room, stiff and in an unconscious state - I don’t remember well, and no one is interested in it.
And the pathologist turned out to be a simple and cheerful person. When I came to my senses, he laughs and tells me: “I would open you, Mikhalych, and wouldn’t blink an eye if I went to work that day, you were lucky that I was with a strong hangover!”

And in the house, in anticipation of the arrival of Mikhalych's body from the morgue, preparations were underway for the funeral. We bought a coffin, wreaths, spruce branches, ordered a hearse. The son came from out of town. Everyone is crying, crying. And suddenly a phone call, they ask relatives to come to the morgue for a living Mikhalych and bring him clothes - it’s not for him to return home naked! At first, they didn’t believe it, they thought that it was someone’s prank. And then they believed and went after Mikhalych.
I don’t know how it was with them there, how the relatives met with the living Mikhalych - I was not a witness to that meeting.
Mikhalych, after the shock that he experienced in the morgue, somehow quickly recovered. He didn’t write a complaint about the ambulance doctor and didn’t scold Katerina for not being able to wake him up that morning, only slightly enlightened him.
And still Mikhalych does not think about death and is not afraid of it. He is only afraid of getting into the morgue alive and even wrote a will, in which he asks in the event of his death not to take his body to the morgue and not to open it. And for greater certainty, he legalized the will, assured it at the notary's office and put it on the bedside table in a conspicuous place.
So I’m thinking about whether to write such a will for me - somehow it will be calmer.

Good afternoon, dear readers!

This post is going to be short…well, short…a little shorter than the others).

But at the same time, I hope, as interesting as the previous ones.

As you asked, I will tell you some interesting, in my opinion, stories from the work of the SME bureau. And I’ll start with an incident that happened in the second month of my work as a day nurse, and gave me confidence that although professionals work for us, the main thing is the teamwork of all departments!

There will be no tint, but I will leave a warning.

Some people may not like what they read here. Re-read the tags, dear friend, and you will understand the essence of the story. And then decide for yourself whether to read it or not.

Part one. By (crime) offense

I had already completely settled into my new job and that morning, as usual, I arrived at the office by 8:00, discussed the latest news with colleagues over a cup of tea in the relaxation room, and went to take work at the night one. That night was calm, and only two bodies were waiting for us. One of them is Bichara, who was found under the bridge. The smell was appropriate, but its main advantage is the beard. Huge, gray-haired, magnificent! Like a real old man. As it turned out a little later on the table, he died of hypothermia on the background of alcohol intoxication. The stains of Vishnevsky and 3.5 ppm of alcohol, which the laboratory revealed, only confirmed the preliminary diagnosis. But this post is not about him.

There was another body on the floor in the refrigerator. Female. 47 years old. OCMT. The head was carefully wrapped by orderlies with some kind of rag. a broken skull was actively losing its contents right to our floor. It was decided to start the working day with her. In addition, they called us and said that two more criminals would be brought by dinner. So the BOMZHIK was waiting in the fridge for the time being, and we started working with the woman.

I threw the body on a gurney and took it to the sectional room. An expert and a laboratory assistant were already waiting for us there.

As we learned from the protocol of inspection of the scene, the woman went to feed the cattle in the barn in the evening, where she received a horse's hoof in the stomach and head. She flew off from the distance and fell with the back of her head on a metal pin - a part from a cart that secures some kind of connection. (This part was also delivered by the investigator for a comparative examination to our bureau). After 2-3 hours, her husband found her in the barn. He noticed that his wife was gone for a long time and went to see where she was. Found it lying on the floor. Called the police and an ambulance. They declared death. That's actually the whole backstory.

So showdown

The expert began to describe clothing, weight, height (approximately) and other characteristics that are usually dictated before the start of the main stage of the autopsy.

I do not remember verbatim what was dictated there, but the gist is roughly as follows. Female. 47 years old, looks his age, body length - so-and-so, satisfactory nutrition, dressed in such-and-such, etc. I cut the clothes and we are greeted by such a good hematoma on the stomach. The expert describes its color, size and position. Moves to the head. Describes damage. There are two injuries on the head. There is a distinct trace of a horseshoe on the forehead. Bruising, soft tissue injury. The bones are intact on superficial examination. And on the back of the head - OCMT. What bones were described and how they were damaged. If in simple words - a hole, about 2 cm in diameter.

In such cases, I do not touch the head until the expert has completed the superficial examinations. We laid the body on its stomach and the expert examined the occipital (fatal, as it turned out) injury. I compared it with the pin from the package and concluded that so far everything fits.

We turn over. He examines the damage on his forehead and is clearly dissatisfied with something. He began to clatter and sniffle indignantly. For a long time he fiddled with his forehead. And dissatisfied moved to the stomach. And then his sniffling even attracted the attention of a laboratory assistant, who even turned to see what was happening there. The expert threw the tool on the table and walked towards the door.

- Break. he commanded and left.

I looked at the damage - what does not suit him there, xs ... Here is a bruise on the stomach from one hoof, but on the forehead from the other. The fact that the skin is pierced on the forehead is quite natural for me. Who in childhood did not break his forehead ... I did not understand what was happening.

He returned to the sectional room, he was no longer alone, but with a colleague. And from their conversation, I began to understand what was wrong.

To put it simply, they didn't like the bruise on their stomach. It did not look like a kick with a hoof, but the head injury, although it was clearly inflicted by a horseshoe, but its character was in doubt.

It was decided to suspend the autopsy until communication with the investigator.

I don't know what the organ swing was, but by lunchtime I got the order to bring the body in for an autopsy. No sooner said than done. And without further ado, we did our job. On the brain, by the way, there were obvious injuries that led to a quick death. This and much more was written in the certificate and in the act.

As I found out later, the expert described everything in the act as he saw fit. There was no specifics about the blow with a hoof and about the nature of the damage. There everything was written as it should be in such cases.

By the way, when a body with injuries is sent for examination, the investigator raises a question for the expert. And the expert, if possible, answers it. Guilt or innocence is determined by the investigation and the court. The expert only gives the investigation answers to those questions that interest him.

That's what they decided on. The body was handed over to relatives and we forget about it for a couple of weeks.

Part two. Comparative expertise and model building

And then one day we are sitting, drinking tea in the rest room, and the expert says that tomorrow they will bring a hoofed one. They say the investigator has changed there and the case is reopened. An independent examination was appointed, and after studying the act by these same independent experts, there are grounds for exhumation and re-examination.

In short, here's the thing. The relatives of this woman came to the funeral, well, in the village they heard enough that the roommate beat the deceased. Often she was almost naked (in which she managed to jump out of the house) spent the night at the neighbors, etc. They began to download the investigation, raised the case, and there were no testimony from neighbors at all, there was no poll of the inner circle, in short, the young cop decided to quickly close everything so as not to dirty up his statistics and not work properly. And this cop was not simple, but someone's protege. He was sent to the district to be quickly promoted there and returned to the city already in rank and with a good track record. But this cop ran into meticulous relatives and was forced to give up the case, which was successfully continued. The main suspect is the common-law husband of the deceased.

And now the room stinks, and on the table is an exhumed body. Two more experts arrived for the examination. One from another bureau, and the second from afar was brought by relatives as an independent one. The atmosphere was solemn or something ... So many minds in the room, and an important task before them.

Everyone was familiarized with the act and concluded that the description is exhaustive and corresponds to what is. They also found the part where it is written that without additional examinations it is impossible to accurately establish the nature and conditions in which the damage was caused. This recommendation was also safely ignored by the investigators.

And so the work began. For examination, a sample of a horseshoe and the same pin were transferred. As for the first time, no one doubted that it was this pin that stuck into the head and caused death, but with a hoof on the forehead, everything was not so clear. They tinkered, poked around and buzzed like bees. Threads were attached to the forehead and the angle of inclination was determined. They took a horseshoe and combined it with the wound. Lined up the scheme and direction of impact. So they fussed and fiddled and eventually began to dictate the act to the laboratory assistant. And then everything became clear to us. The blow was delivered from the bottom up, like a horse hits, and almost perpendicular to the forehead with a slight offset to the side. Those. beaten either from the side with a swing. The trajectory of movement is parallel to the floor. Or from top to bottom from behind the head, provided that the body was in a horizontal position on the back. Then the impact trajectory is a descending arc perpendicular to the floor. And the damage itself raised doubts about the lifetime of the injury. They agreed that the injury was more likely post-mortem, inflicted immediately after death, than intravital. With the head sort of figured out.

We started examining the abdomen. During the time spent in the grave, the bruise became even more contrasting. A discussion began, books and atlases rustling with images of damage, etc., and one of the experts leaves the sectional room and goes to the refrigerator. He returns with a shoe (he took it off some corpse), begins to apply it and vividly discuss the result of the comparison. I already understood everything! A bruise is the result of a kick in the stomach in shoes. The experts conferred for a long time on exactly how to describe everything correctly, and now the laboratory assistant began pounding the act under dictation. Ready!

There was an air of success in the room. The doctors discussed the case noisily and exchanged opinions. When they parted, I went over to the body to put it in order. The seam on the abdomen was loosened in the area of ​​the hematoma and had to be sewn up again, and the skin on the head in the area of ​​the blow was separated from the skull. All this needed to be corrected.

I looked at the damage and couldn't believe my eyes. Ah clearly same in sight, that a horseshoe. And the shape of the notch is exactly where it should be if a horse hit. And as it turns out, she...

Outcome

Naturally, this case made a lot of noise in our bureau and we all followed its progress, and when the investigator who was in charge of the case came to us, we surrounded him in unison and waited for details.

He said that having received an updated act and the testimony of neighbors, they put pressure on the widower, and he split. By the way, he beat his wife for a long time, competently and skillfully. Without damage to the bones and abundant visible traces.

And that evening he quarreled with his wife in the barn and heaped on her stomach. She fell and hit her head on some kind of piece of iron. Yes, yes, the same pin from the cart. The man turned out to be cold-blooded and prudent. He figured out how to stir things up. He took a horseshoe from the wall, nailed it to a thick stick, stood in such a way that the shape of the horseshoe corresponded to the desired position, and with a flourish he fucked his second half in the dead forehead. A horseshoe-shaped wound immediately appeared on his forehead. Substituting an innocent animal, the man waited 2.5 hours and only then called the ambulance and the police.

That is why the wound looked like it was received after death, and not during life. The heart was no longer beating at the moment of impact. This was noticed by the expert at the first stage, which he wrote about in the act.

The guy has iron nerves, doesn't it? After killing his wife and covering up his tracks, wait more than 2 hours for the whole story to have a real look, and only then call an ambulance. It would not affect the outcome in any way. The woman died almost instantly.

Half a year later, from another investigator, I learned that the man went to prison, and the daughter of the deceased brought a hefty cake to the investigator, who hyped the case.

What happened to the cop who initially closed the case, I don’t know.

Here is such a story.

It was then that I realized that the expert is only a tool in the hands of the investigation. Yes, he can do a lot, but only within the framework of the case that the investigator is conducting. If law enforcement agencies are interested in quality work, then the result can be expected. And if they don’t care about the truth, then the expert’s act is sent to a folder. That's the end of it.

Please do not ask me for the details of the examination. I'm just an orderly and I can't competently answer your questions. Everything he knew, he wrote.

Thank you for your attention.