Have I seen a dead body? Have I seen a dead body?!?
I'm a hospice nurse. That's all I f"cking see!


almost

I'll have to remember some of the more outstanding stories.
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 17:17, 2 replies)

I applied for a job as a hospital porter...
...and one of first questions they asked me at interview was 'would seeing corpses bother you?'

I said no - and got the job.

I started shortly afterwards, and on my first day the head porter led me to the porter's room, and introduced me to the lads. The phone then rang, the head porter took the call - then turned to me and said 'lets break you in gently - we have a body to get from intensive care'.

So off we went, with our trolley - we arrived at the ward - I stepped behind the curtains, looked at the body....

...and promptly acted like Chunk in Goonies, when the body falls from the fridge.

I....i....it's a STTIFFFF!!
I totally locked up, and just stood gaping like a goldfish - expecting it to sit up and shout 'bbrraaainssss'.

Anyway, once I'd chilled a little, I took it off to the mortuary - where I saw loads more corpses - and ever since then they don't bother me.

In fact I collect them....under my patio, in my attic, and in my fridge.

Thanks for listening...
( gunkyfibbon ...acting his shoe size, not his age, since, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 17:10, Reply)

I apologise in advance for the length, and lack of funny.
Okaaaaay…

There have already been a couple of similar posts. I’ve been holding off a bit, but here goes.

I recently turned 37 – a ripe old age, compared to some of the whipper-snappers on here. Every year I get older, I am reminded of my own mortality and how I shouldn’t take getting older for granted. But I do. I expect to be around for a while yet, all things willing.

Back in the early 90’s, my mum was having some problems with one of her eyes (I forget if it was the left or right now) and took herself off to the doctor. “It’s nothing” they repeatedly told her, “it’s an infection / irritation caused by the environment you work in. Here’s a prescription for some eye drops. Now fuck off and stop bothering me with this insignificant little complaint”. Etc. And ad infinitum, each time the eye drops were finished and the problem still hadn’t got better.

This went on for about 6 months, until her boyfriend lost his rag and demanded that they stop pissing about and make an appointment with a specialist. Which happened, although begrudgingly on the medical practice’s part. Off she went for a few tests, and the usual wait ensued.

Now, at this point in time I had moved away from home, and had just got my first job at the then DSS. Actually, that isn’t strictly true, my first job on leaving college was working in a factory for two weeks, packing *ahem* ladies’ things. Anyway, because I had settled about 50 miles away, I was no longer travelling back to the homestead every weekend, and so was kept up to date with happenings either via telephone, or sporadic visits. One night the phone rang. It was mum, telling me that she had the results back, and she had cancer.

Shit.

A vigorous regime of radiotherapy soon followed, which made it easier for me to see her as she was hospitalised in Newcastle – a mere 20 minutes from where I had settled. This was good from my perspective, but not so for my family, who had the long slog of a 120 mile round-trip to look forward to nearly every day. Radiotherapy didn’t work, so a course of chemotherapy followed, during which she lost all her hair. However, it seemed to halt the spread of the cancer, which by now was hitching a ride on practically every cell in her body. Yay, we thought, we can have mum back (we being me, my brother and sister). And for a short while all seemed to be OK, until she was readmitted and it was found that the cancer hadn’t actually been stopped, but it had instead spread into her bones and was literally eating away at her from the inside.

More treatment followed, and my trips back home whenever she was allowed out of hospital became more frequent. But then, I got a phone call from her. “I can’t do it anymore” she said, “I’m not getting any better, I just want to be at home, and I’m discharging myself tomorrow and stopping the treatment”. This was a Thursday, so I made arrangements to go back home after work on the Friday. When I got there, her brother, whom none of us had seen for years, had come over from Germany. It was a bit of an emotional weekend, and I remember on the Sunday night, giving her a kiss on the cheek before I went to get my train back. “See you next weekend, mum”, I said.

Mum just smiled, and replied “Goodbye, son”.

The following Tuesday morning the phone rang. At 7am. Mum had died in her sleep at around 3 that morning. I can’t begin to describe the numbness I felt – it was expected, but not this quick. Me and the ex both took the day off work, and went up together. We got to the family home, where the atmosphere was as you would expect, and I hugged my younger sister and brother, and my mum’s boyfriend. She was already in the chapel of rest, and I wanted to say goodbye one last time, so me and the ex went down there.

Unfortunately, by that time they had closed the coffin, but kindly agreed to open it again if I wanted. Yes, I did, very much, I didn’t want to remember her as a pain-riddled, fragile woman, I wanted to see her at peace. So they told us to come back after an hour, and they’d have everything ready.

Now, some people don’t like the idea, but I’m glad I insisted, as I was faced with not a dead body, but my mum, looking no longer riddled with pain and cancer, but looking like she did before she got ill; happy, and at peace with herself. It wasn’t a maudlin experience, and I was able to give her a kiss on the forehead and echo what she had said to me the previous Sunday. “Goodbye”.

I was 21 at the time. My sister was 19, and my brother 14.

Mum was 44, 7 years older than I am now. That really fucks with my head sometimes, I tell you.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Thu 28 Feb 2008, 17:04, 7 replies)

Only on the internet.
However, I've been dealing with a lot of dead mice recently (my office has a rodent infestation) and they fucking stink like a rabid whore after being fucked by 850,000 men in a row without a break or a bath.

So I can imagine bodies smell a lot worse.

Oh, and the old lady stuck underneath a van. She wasn't dead, but died a couple of days later in hospital.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 17:03, Reply)

Kinda......
I was 13 and saw the blokes at the local funeral home taking a body bag out the back of the car. Not that traumatic now i think bout it but when i was 13 it kinda freaked me out

When my parents were still young and unmarried they went on a romantic walk along the beach only to end up finding the body of an old lady washed up, always made me smile that

Length? I'm assuming about 5 foot for the old lady
(the heretic, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 17:00, Reply)

Oh dear God no.
For the second week in a row I actually have a story that I can post, but for the second week in a row it is a sad and depressing affair, so apologies for lack of hilarity, but I'd imagine a few of the replies this week will be quite similar. Skip this one if you're after comedy.

In an odd twist, this kind of ties in with last weeks question, although it is a very good example of Karma just not working at all. My dear old Mum was the best mum in the world. I'm sure everyone thinks theirs is, but mine really was. She was a quiet, decent person who would do anything for anybody. Her whole life was spent looking after me and my Dad and their little council house here in Scotland. She never asked for much, never hurt a soul and never complained about the lemons life handed her. And it handed them out in spades.

I was a second child, my older brother had been still born. After I was born my Mum got a wee job as a home help which she loved, until her eyes started to hurt and her balance went.... conjunctivitis was diagnosed, but it later turned out it was sarcoidosis, a pretty rare disease. Not only that, it was neurosarcoidosis, it was affecting her brain and lungs as well. This disease is apparently mostly associated with afro-carribean men, not tiny wee ladies from rural scotland, but although she lost her job and was embarrased because she thought people would think her staggers meant she was drunk, she was still cheery. Then she was diagnosed with cancer. The steroid medication she was on for the sarcoidosis meant chemotherapy was out, so she had to have a mastectomy. Thankfully it was successful, but my Mum was an intensely private person and the whole experience was a terrible ordeal for her. Six years later, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer which by that time had spread to her liver. We waited while the doctors decided what to do, all the while knowing deep down that there was very little they could.... she was so frail that chemotherapy would have been very dangerous, and operating seemed unlikely. It all went very quickly after that, she was put on morphine (she had been coping with the pain of stomach cancer with co-codamol, which she laughed about minutes after being diagnosed!) and started to become more and more distant. When we knew nothing could be done, we got a hospital bed installed in our living room so she could come home, but my Mum being my Mum, she wouldn't allow us to help her. She got home about a week after diagnosis, by then too weak to stand up but she wouldn't allow us to help her in and out of bed, she wouldn't use her commode and she wouldn't let us give her her medication. She went back into a local hospital the next day, by then she wasn't really that aware of what was going on around her. That was on a saturday, by monday she had gone downhill. She couldn't move or communicate, and every breath she took she let out a pained groan. Anyone who has been through this will know how hard it is to watch a loved one suffer so much, and after a few hours my Mum's sister's told us to go home and get some rest for an hour or two. While I lay on my bed at home, I prayed to God to end my mum's suffering even though I'm not a religious person, and when we returned later to the hospital and sat down around her bed, she stopped breathing for a few seconds. We took her hands in ours and told her it was OK to go, and she slipped away. As she went, her eyes cleared and suddenly she looked calm, then she slipped away.

Although she had been in pain for months, the whole episode from going into hospital to the end was one month. It sounds strange to say, but I'm thankful that it was so fast. I had heard it said many times before (ex wife was a nurse) that once someone is gone, all that is left is a shell, but as I looked at my mum for the last time it really did seem that way.

My Mum had suffered a lot throughout her life, and she was only 57 when she died. Looking at her there on the hospital bed, she looked quite peaceful and finally free of pain. I'll never forget the way she looked as she passed away though.... I have my own views about that moment which I'll keep to myself, I know how cynical you lot are.

This baring your soul on the QOTW is quite cathartic really, if you're like me and don't talk about these things much. Still, I hope next week offers me a chance to crack some jokes.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 16:56, 2 replies)

Oh dear god!
*pop*

unlurks

browsing the internet one day i came across possibly the most horrific pictures i have ever seen

www.albertastars.com/posts.php?forum=4&topic=879

p.s. these pics are seriously NSFW, look at your own peril!!

edited to update to a non-registering link
(ryan-nipper, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 16:51, 7 replies)

Dead man in the high street
Several years ago I was messing around in the high street, as you do when you're young. Just the usual stuff, riding bikes, attempting tricks and sitting in Maccy D's.

Down a road off the high street there was a small marketplace, renowned for takeaways and prostitutes but also home to a bank. The bank backed onto a carpark, and was very secluded.

So we rock up early afternoon, farting about and someone notices a man lying in the corner of the carpark. We all ride over and have a look, and it seems to everyone assembled that the "gentleman of the street" has passed away. White as a sheet, blue lips, half empty bottle of whisky in hand.

One of our group, I can't remember who, decides he is dead and takes it upon himself to ride to a phonebox to call the police as this was long before mobiles became popular.

Within a few minutes a police car turns up, sirens and lights flashing. Seems to make everything a bit more terrifying to my young self. Policemen get out the car, stroll over to where we are, walk through the middle of our group and have a word with each other.

One of the policeman walks up to him, squats down and looks at him closely. Stands up, gestures to his mate to come over. So the other copper gets on his radio or something and gives the tramp a nudge with his foot.

The tramp jumps like he's been hit with a tazer, exploding in a frenzy of matted hair, old trenchcoats, plastic bags and string, policemen shit it and don't know what to do, all of us, probably about ten or eleven kids burst out laughing in absolute hysterics. Tramp gets up, starts jumping up and down shouting at the police.

I can't remember much else about it now, it was a long time ago and I was laughing so hard. Still one of my favourite memories, occassionally something will trigger a flashback and I'm unable to keep myself from laughing. What gets me the most is what the tramp must have thought when he came round to see two policemen, flashing blue lights, and a bunch of schoolkids on bikes laughing so hard they nearly wet themselves.

Good times.

Edit: I know he wasn't technically dead. Or dead in any other sense, but fuck it. Some stories on here were just a bit too harrowing for me. He's probably dead now anyway...
(Stevie Ruggling, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 16:50, 1 reply)

perhaps irrelevant but
i just remembered. my flat mate is going to the funeral of her exboyfriend's mum.

my other flat mate was trying to explain this only it came out as;

'sarah is going to the funeral of her exboyfriend whose mum she used to go out with'

inappropriate i know but i laughed.
(ladyintheradiator, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 16:29, Reply)

Auschwitz
I've stood in the gas chamber, in the punishment cells and against the wall where 20,000 received bullets to the skull.

No ghosts. Just silence.
(frankspencer, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 16:28, 11 replies)

Quite a few in my time
but I used to be a courier in Central London and you tend to see stuff, accidents, crime etc. The most horrific was an accident on Clerkenwell Road just before Hatton Garden where a truck went over some young cyclist's head. I remember one of the Motorbike cops was shaking at the accident scene, it was so ghastly.

The first time was actually a crime, or murder to be blunt, on Great Titchfield Street. Basically some guy was stabbed whilst being mugged and stumbled as far as the entrance to a chemist where he promptly collapsed dead. Not that I knew at the time, it was just somebody lying in lots of blood. I felt pretty numb for the rest of the day.

Now strangely, a month or two later, when I had heard the entire grizzly details that he had been stabbed and was actually already dead when I saw him, I was heading down Great Titchfield Street again, the wrong way (it's one way) when this bloke burst out of a side street opposite the Chemist covered in loads of blood. I practically died there and then in the saddle of shock. Only when I looked up the side street and saw a film crew, did I realize it was Crime Watch acting out the murder, and I had ridden clean on to their set. They didn't look happy with me, so I rode off quickly.
( Jahled Three shades of black, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 16:14, 1 reply)

The only room other than a bathroom to have a toilet in it!
During medical studies, rooms full of em (Prosectoriums).... God bless the Universtiy of Jersey!

Ahem... rooms full of people who kindly donate their bodies to science.... cut in all directions! No real feeling about it... except the gent sliced vertically *all* the way down the middle. Kept my legs crossed all day!
(apatao, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 16:13, Reply)

Several times.
I was married to a Catholic. She insisted on taking me to funerals.

Viewing a dead body just before burial is one of the most barbaric and horrid customs I know of. I far prefer to remember people alive than remember their corpse.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 28 Feb 2008, 16:11, 2 replies)

No body, but dead nevertheless
Secondary school, biology lessons. Back of the class, on a shelf?

Human brain in a small rectangular tank. Pickled. Old and yellowed. I'm not sure if it was there as a threat to pupils who didn't do their homework, or as a test to see who would show no fear of dissection and the like...

Apparently it used to have a name-tag, but that got lost over the years. Quite interesting to look at, anyway - and much nicer than the monstrous dissected rabbits in glass cylinders hidden under a bench, with bloated, blue-purple large intestines hanging out into the formaldehyde, magnified by the shape of the containers...
(Happy Idiot Talk now has an alibi for, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 16:02, 3 replies)

Christ! Loads!
Went to that bodyworlds thing when it was in London with the misses; it was quite the modern thing to do with a lady I thought. We looked at all sort of dead people looking back, mostly in comedy positions and/or grafts.

Strangely, the show had the after-effect of making me both extremely hungry and horny at the same time; a combination I'd never experienced before.
( slippery doctore, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 15:53, 3 replies)

Rebel! Rebel!

I’ve had a cunning plan about how the mood of this QOTW could possibly be ‘lightened’ if you so wish...

We talk about friends / relatives who we have seen in accidents or the chapel of rest etc, but how about tying it in with an amusing anecdote about when they were alive?

One of my very closest and best friends was a lad from Leeds affectionately known as ‘Cheesy’ - so called because his surname sounded a bit like 'foreskin' (I know, I know, we were very young). He was fucking brilliant, highly opinionated (read: argumentative cock-itch) and a superb musician - the drummer in our band.

I loved him, I miss him and yes, I saw his cold, dead body after he succumbed to Lymphoma in 1999 aged just 26.

Actually, as I think back now, when I did see him, the make up they put on him was quite funny…he was a proper pale git his whole life and they gave him a ‘Jodie Marsh’ style orange face FFS!

Right – that's that bit out of the way…

Many years ago, Cheesy and I were at a party hosted by a right cunt (I won't go into why - you'll just have to trust me). We were with our relative ‘main squeezes’ and were in no way interested in the ridiculous activities the host was suggesting (like spraying muscle relaxant on our feet so we could dance to hard core rave all night - I mean...for the love of baseball bat buggery!).

We just wanted to get honk-tastically pissed and cop off with our fragrant female fuckbuddies as much as possible.

As I staggered round with the strains of OK Computer blaring in the background (I had taken the liberty to remove the ‘programmed-to-the-minute-12-hour-dance-music-athon’ session, and lobbed the discs somewhere cunty host couldn’t find them) I realised that I hadn’t actually seen Cheesy for quite a while.

Now, Cheesy had a reputation for falling asleep in some monumentally stupid places when pissed, so I told my lady friend I was going to look for him and checked around the house…nothing. I thought ‘If he’s fucked off I’m gonna twat the...twat’ to myself as I blundered outside to look for his car.

It was parked by a pub opposite and I could make out what looked like a figure moving inside. ‘What the fuck’s he doing in there?’ I wondered like the naïve young ball sack I was. Of course, as I approached the car…I started to notice that the windows were steamed up and his piece-of-shit old Peugeot 309 was rocking slightly.

By this time I was just a few feet away.

As the penny finally dropped in the cretinous melon I call a head, I was about to turn on my heels and walk back to the house when I saw the window being wound down.

“Aye up Pooflake, what’s up?” He said from the front seat with his girlfriend merrily bumping up and down on him.

“Erm…nothing…It can wait” I said, motioning with a nod to the fact that it was quite blatant what was going on.

He said with a smile and his head moving backwards and forwards: “Have you put some decent tunes on that wanker’s stereo yet?”

His companion continued enthusiastically...not even missing a stroke.

“It can wait, honestly!” I say…starting to walk backwards towards the house.

“Mmmm……what can you put on?......*grunt*…..I think I saw some Metallica in his CD collection” he continued whilst gathering momentum.

“Erm….well, I put on OK computer” I said, not believing the surrealism of the conversation I was taking part in.

“Good choice Poo...*thrust*...that Paranoid Android song is smart….oooooh hang on a minute….urrrgggghhhhhh!!......You finished love?”

“Yep” said the girl happily.

“Righto - lets get shit-faced and put Daz Automatic in that fuckers body-building powder” said Cheesy, as he opened the door.

They then both stepped out, nonchalantly pulled up their jeans etc and walked up to me.

As he saw me shaking my head in disbelief and with my mouth wide open, he put his arm round my shoulder, grinned, and we all walked back to the party.

So yeah, I did see him dead, but I also saw him shag…and that was a damn sight funnier experience let me tell you.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Thu 28 Feb 2008, 15:50, 9 replies)

I saw one once
Some bloke had managed to kill himself under a train in Reading...without the train moving apparently. Amazing.

Yes, I appreciate the completely mediocre level of this post. I'm dead tired.
( slippery doctore, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 15:47, Reply)

still makes me feel unhappy inside...
Back in the day, when I was going through my "pills are good" stage, I was at a club, dancing and gurning away like a village idiot.
The main DJ of the night had just started spinning his tunes when some bloke literally falls from the heavens above and uses his head as a crashmat, only yards from where I'm standing. One of his flailing arms coshed some girl upside the head as he fell past her.
He had fallen from a balcony way up high - there was a promotional banner trailing from it where he had tried to grab hold of it on his way down.
He was down, and he wasn't gonna be getting up again.
I was pretty out of it, but I can still picture the pool of blood that formed around his head in seconds.
Worse, I can still remember the people that just moved out of the way and carried on dancing around his limp body.
I left the club shortly afterwards, not really up for it any more.

As an aside, I saw Stand By Me when I was ten and it's still one of my favourite films.
( nightbuffalo needs more duct tape, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 15:47, Reply)

I saw one on holiday
It was in the Cheddar Gorge I remember, in a cave, it was the headless skeleton of a man, the head had been carried away by the river flowing next to him.
(Maccy Divided by 0 on, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 15:43, Reply)

Plenty
Long time listen first time caller

What with my parent taking to the married with children thing late in life I have been to more family funerals than I could poke a stick at. Elderly Uncles and Aunts. 1 set of Grandparents etc etc.
Just to give you some idea of how old, my paternal grandad died 20 years before I was born.
None of them really affected me much did the usual hand on forehead thing at the funeral or whatever and shrugged it off bit sad but got over it.

Then Dec 2007 the big one, my dad had been quite ill for years slowly getting all the stuff old people get pneumonia infections and what have you. He had been developing Alzheimer's over the year as well so to cut a long story short he was in pretty appalling health by the start of the month. Really thin and didn't recognise any of us.
We got a call on the 3rd of December to go to the hospital as he had taken a bad turn, When we got to the hospital and saw him I just knew he hadnt long left. He was breathing really quickly and shallow. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling and he was the palest I have ever seen a live body before. We took turns talking to him and contacted all his remaining brothers and sisters who all arrived around 9 o clock in the evening.
By ten he was barely breathing I had to listen really hard to hear any breath at all. We all sat around around him and I put my hands on him. Without warning his breathing got a bit stronger and his eyes focused on each of in turn and for the first time in months it looked like he knew us all. I heard my brother say "We are all here for you daddy". As soon as he said that my fathers breathing became really shadow and as I sat there with my hands on him he died. So thats the totally non humourous telling of how I saw a Parent turning into a dead body.

Apologies etc
(santoslhalper, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 15:42, Reply)

Dictator deathporn
I went to see Mao when I was 15, and Lenin when I was 17. They both looked waxen and altogether... dead.

I've also been to the Killing Fields at Cheung Ek. There's a stupa there filled with skulls. Like a good little tourist, I took a photograph of them - pretty much exactly the same photograph that every other fucking honky takes.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 15:27, 4 replies)

When Rob suggested this question, my immediate reaction was, no, not yet anyhow.
Then I remembered Joe.

Joe had been covered with a blanket. I remember pulling it back, steeling myself in case I couldn't cope, but it was OK - there he was. Kinda peaceful looking.

The hospital left me with him as long as I needed. We sat for an hours talking about all the things I'd wanted to tell him. A one-sided conversation maybe, but a conversation all the same.

It was the silly small hours of the night, so it was quiet both inside and out. So quiet that I hardly noticed time passing or what I was doing. I certainly wasn't that rational - at one point I realised I'd spent quarter of an hour attempting to contort my body into the same pose that Joe was now occupying, just so I'd always remember it. I can't now, which is sad.

At some point I must have fallen asleep. I was woken by a nurse asking if she could take Joe away again, which was when I realised I'd seen enough and made my peace.

Farewell, son.
( chthonic, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 15:25, 12 replies)

She's dead... again... and again... you know... the usual...
I grew up in a neighborhood full of elderly people and it wasn't an uncommon thing to find someone who just dropped dead. I found one old lady who apparently dropped dead unlocking her house after breakfast at the waffle house.

There was one old lady that I found "dead" on multiple occasions. She would go into diabetic comas and just fall out wherever she was at. I found her in the bushes that she was trimming, on her back porch, the front porch... and one unfortunate time where she fell out her back kitchen door completely naked...

I got to know the 911 and ambulance guys pretty well while she was alive... haha One guy was always amused "You again! This kid is always calling in the usual!" They would show me all the nifty medical crap they carried around and their truck.
(TribeDoktor, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 15:17, 1 reply)

By proxy
Crackhouseceilidhband is currently in Libya - at this precise moment, she ought to be bumping her way out of Tripoli towards somewhere... else. She has authorised me to make up responses on her behalf while she's away, and we were both fully expecting the chance to come up with tales involving snot, sex, vomit and poo - possibly all at the same time.

But there's no need, see. Why? 'Cos she's an archaeologist. Dead bodies is her career. Therefore she wins.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 15:05, 3 replies)

From a friend...
A friend of mine works in care homes for the elderly, so obviously death isn't too out of the normal for them.

I just remember a story about one elderly lady who was admitted, moved in in the afternoon sometime, and sadly passed away sometime during that night.

They were more annoyed by the fact that they hadn't even finished all the paperwork required by her moving in before they had to start on the paperwork referring to her death and lack of need for the room for any further period...
(442, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 15:00, Reply)

Yes...
A big group of young teenagers including a 14 year old Icklemonkey got off the bus on the way to a disco. The disco was on the other side of the road. It was a busy road. Some of us looked where we were going. Some of us didn't. We were all pretty lucky, apart from one boy.

It was a 30mph limit but in my somewhat hazy memory of events the car driver actually put his foot down as he drove towards the group of over excited kids crossing the road. The boy in question was 12/13. When the car hit him he was thrown into the air and landed on the path on the other side of the road. It is true, it really knocks you right out of your shoes.

It was about 10 minutes between the accident and him becoming a dead body.

He was incredibly brave, unlike the rest of us who were unhurt but screaming like only teenagers can.

Upset? yes, traumatised? very, relieved? no, like poking him with a stick, not at all but the driver of the car, bashing him with a very big stick a lot of times definately.

On a brighter note also went to the bodywork exhibition when it was in London and I thought that it was amazing and I am very grateful to the people who allowed their bodies to be displayed in such a way.
(icklemonkey, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 14:51, 1 reply)

Long division
Already posted the "lighter" stories, here's the more unpleasant one.

My family used to live near a main road that runs through a small village. Everyone tends to take it because of the big market there, and so on the weekends particularly it's really rather busy. It's also one of the worst black spots for motorcycle accidents, it has a weird ranging set of speed limits, it's on an incline and due to the way the wind blows, it can get very icy very quickly. It gets closed relatively often due to someone who's come off their bike, or hit someone else.

And these accidents usually aren't pleasant. I've been driven past a couple... one where there was no blood on the road, and the motorcyclist just... lay there. Almost peaceful.

And then there's the other one. I only saw it for a few seconds, but that was enough. Nearly made me throw up. It wasn't even that much that I saw but... two separate tarpaulins over what was clearly one motorcyclist, with a little blood between them. A good couple of metres apart. But there didn't seem to be any other vehicles stopped, just the ambulance/police. Nothing on the verge, or the side of the road that I could see.

What the hell happened to the poor bastard? How the hell could he rip himself in two without another vehicle involved? I can't see them removing the vehicle from the scene of the accident that quickly. It's a question I don't want to think about.
(calamarain just invented dehydrated water, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 14:40, 3 replies)