Tonight I wheeled another body to the morgue. Modern trollies are constructed so that they can be placed next to the refrigerated cabinets and the inner tray is pulled across two hinged metal slides. Once in place within the centre of the trolley, small foot pumps are used to raise or lower the body tray....like the hydraulics of a bar stool.
The mechanics of the trolley has made it possible to slide the deceased across at the level of a hospital bed before lowering the body to reduce visibility prior to covering. Two people are required to comfortably slide the body across into the fridge.
A body fridge is a simple structure. "Ours" is two storied. Two heavy, cold steel fold-down doors with circular, rotating handles open outwards and are lifted up so the body can be positioned and moved across. The stainless steel tray fits into the metal slides and is pulled easily across into the chamber for storage. Rural hospitals do not always have the luxury of a funeral parlour so when one dies, one may spend a long weekend in cold storage. When our small hospital had no local doctor, we once had to wait a number of weeks for a locum to pass through on the way to a coastal town before the death certificate could be completed and the body finally placed in a local grave.
Hospital morgues vary and not all hospitals have them. I was locked inside one on one occasion and I can assure you that it actually felt quite soothing. Most private hospitals do not have their own morgue. They arrange for funeral directors to collect the deceased person once the family have been to pay their last respects. In this case, the nurses wash the body and lay them out for collection. Dentures are put in, the jaw is supported, eyes are closed and soiled clothing carefully changed. The collecting company (often a family business) will place the body in a zip-up bag, sit them up and wheel them out in a discreet fashion. Discreet may mean via the underground carpark or via the front door, depending on the establishment. Some of the funeral companies collect a single body while others stack them neatly at the back in compartments, almost like a mini-body bus.
The first dead body I ever saw as a student nurse was on night-duty, which prompted my student colleagues to torment me by using every possible opportunity to scare me with rattling drip stands rolling out of elevators in deserted, dark corridors. It wasn't the bodies that scared me.....it was the occasional groan of expelled air which could be heard as you turned them. It was the moving shadow that you saw moments before finding one. It was the gentle tap on your shoulder you felt while you were on your own with one in an empty room. The old nurses taught us to always open a window to release their spirit or they couldn't leave.
Before locking the morgue tonight, I said,"Good night, we will see you in the morning," closed the door and went back inside to open a window......not enough to make a howling noise but just enough to allow a cold, shivery breath-like breeze drift through the room and down the empty corridors.
