Gross anatomy

Yesterday I participated in the autopsy of the victims of this shooting: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080625/ap_on_bi_ge/plant_shooting_25
The victim that I saw being cut open was a 29-year-old Hispanic male. He was short, slim typical Mexican-looking guy with a lot of pitch-black hair on his head and a small dark mustache that you would see washing dishes at a Mexican restaurant or on a top of a new house construction. A medical pathologist preformed the autopsy (not the coroner) and he was answering every anatomy question that I had. At the end he told me that this was a perfect body to cut up – there was absolutely nothing wrong with the man + he still had all of his anatomical parts such as appendix., gallbladder, both kidneys, clean lungs, healthy heart and so on. The only visible way to know that he was dead was a clear, deep, round gun-shot wound about ¼ inches in diameter on the side of his head.

It was a very tragic way to die – these guys (and 1 woman) just went to work on the 3rd shift and most of them were sitting in the break room when the shooter showed up. The guy that I was helping to cut had a defense wound on his hand and I was so very proud of him because I know I would also put up a fight before I die if someone was trying to attack me.

This man died just 9 hours before the autopsy and his body felt cold and stiff when I tried to unfold his fingers for the policeman to do fingerprinting. I was not afraid or disgusted of his poor little dead body – all I could think about was – there are living people out there who hate enough to reduce a person into a pile of dead meat.