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.

Dangerous phones and friends

I was awakened by a phone ring at 7 am today. A handsome, polite, young male voice bid me a Good Morning and asked me if I got his pants ready for him. I checked myself to see if I was still sleeping, but the reality of a bright summer morning was definitely kicking in. I went on to explain to him that I was a homemaker and I didn’t make any pants. He lost interest in the conversation and excused himself. I was disappointed because I was imagining a very cute guy that I talked with and I was sad to loose him. I told about it to my husband and he said that should have told the man to come pick up his pants. We laughed and got in the car to go to Wal-Mart. We were almost at the Wal-Mart parking lot when I got another call. This time it was a middle-eastern man with a deep voice and a heavy accent – he also wanted to know where his pants were. This time my imagination was picturing someone looking like Ben Laden and I quickly told him that he had a wrong number. The man was asking for my name and I could not figure out if he was saying Irina or Elena (another very common Russian name). I decided to call one of my Russian friends from Evansville who has an alteration business and who’s name is Elena to tell her about my encounters (and to warn her about the crazy middle-eastern guy).

It turns out that she wrote my phone number next to her own cell phone number on a piece of paper that she usually keeps on the table under the glass when she does business – she keeps that numbers close so that she can easily give them out to clients. We laughed and said Good buy, but now I am wondering – who else is going to call me next about his pants?