We planned the event for 3 days and there was very little time to prepare (make inquiries, make contacts). From the inventory we had only a list of morgues. Since the concentration of morgues is the highest in the central region, we decided to systematically bypass them (“They will send us to one, we will go to another”). We immediately decided that there was no point in selling lies: "A man must see a corpse at least once" :).

At first we were, ended up in the Infectious Diseases Hospital, the local watchman was not particularly accommodating:

Can you get into the morgue?

On an excursion.

No, the morgue is closed.

And in general, in principle, is it real?

No, today is Sunday and the morgue is closed!

And we sank to the hospital on Liteiny. Having successfully bypassed the checkpoint, we easily found the morgue. There was a back door and a distribution room. We didn’t like it in the issuing hall, it seemed a little boring, and we decided to knock on the back. A decently dressed guy of about thirty came out, asked what we wanted.

Can you get into the morgue?

In principle, you can, but why do you need it?

To strengthen the spirit.

Well, let's go ... Only it smells bad there.

There were wreaths, coffins, other inventory. The man approached the bolted door, removed the bolt and opened it... All my ideas about morgues collapsed. In a small room, on the tables, there were corpses, almost in a pile, naked, of an unnatural greenish-gray color, thin, half-decomposed ... What he saw completely interrupted the smell. I looked at all this for about 2 minutes, peered into the details so that my consciousness would not push the picture out.

And it still needs to be opened ... - the guide said.

Is it possible to get an autopsy?

The doctor does the autopsy...

Where can you buy entrance tickets?

You guys need to go to Ekaterininsky 10, to the city morgue: there are drowned people, and firearms, and knives ...

On this we thanked the guide, wrote down the address and left. We agreed that they were not real, they looked like wax figures. In the rest, namely in the "shock" of what we saw, we did not agree. Then I walked along the Nevsky, feeling the unnaturalness of the world, where even the corpses do not look like themselves.

Alexander, 19.03.2006

This report is a good example of how you can "tune in" to the awareness of death. Make sure we are all mortal. And all of us sooner or later "play in the box." Another good example is that Alexander, who proposed and carried out this trip to the morgue, very creatively approached the practice of awareness of death :). What pleases me, as a training leader, in general (it's always nice to work with people who are ready to try and seek their knowledge). This is not only an example of "attuning to the awareness of death", but also an example of an independent search.

The only drawback that can be noted from this report (dedicated to the practice of death awareness) is the poor use of the results of this experience for a deep and serious study of the topic of death. In my opinion, most of this undoubtedly valuable experience was simply not used.

This experience could serve as a strong impetus, an incentive to search for inner knowledge about death, as well as to deepen and strengthen the idea of ​​death. In this case, I can state a weak reflection on this experience - "internal excavations were never carried out" :), as well as a weak transfer of this into my life. If this experience was used later, it was used extremely inefficiently. This came up in a follow-up session where the results for the week were discussed. However, in fairness, it is worth noting that this was the beginning of the practice of awareness of death. In any case, this is another step forward.

Valery Chugreev, 03/23/2005

huravi 25.03.2009 17:39

i study at a medical college literally yesterday we went to the morgue after the trip, a taste for life appeared, everything became somehow more acutely aware that you live, but sooner or later you will also lie on the autopsy table
SHORT WE WILL LIVE

Evgeny 26.09.2010 23:36

Guys, to be shocked, you need emotions.
Not just corpses.
Emotions are to take the body of the deceased / dead woman and, under the painful cry of loved ones and relatives, take it out into the street and take it to the cemetery (or carry it).
And then - to keep.
You will receive the biggest shock when it will be your relatives and friends or relatives of your loved ones. Or your friends. That's when you will understand xy from xy.
And so - you're just a little more. And they did not see death, although they looked at it with all their eyes.

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Nina 13.06.2012 11:25

Fully agree with Evgeny
And also - to realize it, you need to go home to the deceased (just on the street, with you) on your own and inform your relatives about the death - and fully feel the full weight of such news ...
After all, the dead, apparently, do not matter - it’s hard for the living, who have lost loved one...

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_-Shadow-_ 10.10.2016 10:32

Studied in honey, were at the autopsy once.
In parallel, I have been reading Lobsang Rampa for several days now. It was easier to tune in to the fact that I would see just a body. And the autopsy is like cutting old special clothes into rags.

As it was written above - in fact, the corpse looked like an ideal wax doll (there was a girl of about 6 years old. It is enough to look at just a leg or an arm. This instantly caught my eye. A wax doll with the feeling that she is almost alive Just a little more and she will start moving by herself (the corpse was fresh, almost from a hospital bed).

I noticed that when they cut the body, I had a nasty feeling. It's like I'm being cut open... under anesthesia. Feelings are spot on. There is no pain, but the sensations themselves are nasty. Who was injected with an anesthetic, he knows.

All this slimy and wet, all this offal is unpleasant. But I did not notice a strong revulsion. I was more afraid of the smell than the contents of the person. When there is no smell, then it's not so disgusting)))

However...the expected stench was not there (it's still good that the body was young, and not some rotten and slagged adult/old man)))
There was a specific smell. I remember him well. I hear it distinctly when I pass by the meat department in the market)))

There was a vague and incomprehensible attitude to all this. Obsessive fears emerged from the old that this piece of meat had its own life (some kind of hostile entity that could suddenly wake up and start moving). I had the same garbage in relation to the TV as a child - there was an obsessive fear that something lives in it. Fear that it might come to life, "turn on".
From the new - that it's just a useless manikin or "a la Lego" constructor. True, without much opportunity to collect it back))
There was some anxiety about this abandoned body. "What's next for him?" I noticed in myself the fuss and haste, as if something else could be corrected or done better.
There was also some sadness. Something ended, something broke, it became empty and boring - that's how it can be defined. The main thing then is not to indulge)
I still understand that this sadness is not normal. Something is wrong here, there should not be any gravity. Death should be easier and simpler than we used to perceive it.

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Author: A few days ago I happened to visit an ordinary morgue. It would seem, what's wrong with that? Well - the morgue, well - we'll all be there. That's the point, that without being an employee of the morgue or his friend, there is no special opportunity for "outsiders" to inspect and even more so to shoot all the premises. Relatives of the deceased visit only the farewell hall and a couple of rooms ready for their reception, medical students visit the audience and sometimes the sectional.
In the review under the cut, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with how the true last way- the path of the body from the moment of death to the moment the coffin with the body is handed over to relatives for further burial / sending to the crematorium. The review is illustrated, but as ethical as possible. There is only one corpse in the pictures, and the one with a bag on his head.

It all starts with the fact that a person dies.
This can happen at home, or outside the home, or even in the hospital.
Death can be detected immediately - by those around or close, or maybe after a different amount of time, which affects the form in which the corpse will be delivered to the morgue.

On “suspicion of death” they call an ambulance, with which the police arrive. The doctor declares death, and the body is taken to the morgue.
If the death occurred in a hospital, the police do not seem to be needed.

1. And so, they bring him here ...

2. A door with a sign "reception of bodies", a forgotten gurney, and right there - coffins

5. The mortuary consists of two floors and a basement. The first refrigerating chamber is disabled for lack of need for it (the second one is enough, which is in the basement)

6. Then there is a table on which the body is washed if necessary. Please note - the table is granite. According to the orderly, such tables (Russian, stone) are much more convenient than more modern iron (imported) ones - they do not rattle and are easier to clean. It is these tables that are used in the morgue, which appeared some time ago on the Internet marked "Prison morgue" (although in fact this is one of the Moscow morgues at the time of the influx of customers) - the rest of the photos can be found by Google.

7. Then measurement takes place (height is measured - to determine the size of the coffin: the coffin must be 20 cm longer than the body) and registration. Here the ambulance doctor hands over the body to the orderly on duty and Required documents. At this moment, a person finally ceases to be a person, and instead of a full name, he is assigned a number, which is written on a tag and tied to his wrist (a more familiar option is to a toe).

8. Orderlies working here in daily shifts and regularly touching all sorts of different things are required to wash their hands often and wash themselves completely. For this purpose, the morgue is full of sinks, showers and changing rooms.

11. By the way, there is also Internet and Wi-Fi in the morgue (in a hospital where patients are alive, such a benefit is not provided)

12. Relatives need the registry more - after all, it is here that the registration of the services provided by the mortuary takes place, a death certificate is issued, etc.

13. A person is capable of dying suddenly or after a long illness. Citizens who have been observed by various doctors and have corresponding records in the medical records (medical records at the place of treatment), after being delivered to the morgue, are sent to the dressing room, where orderlies bring them into proper shape using simple cosmetics

16. The range of services of the morgue also includes the sale of coffins and accessories, the organization of farewell, funeral services and the provision of funeral transport.

18. Coffins, wreaths and other exhibited in the sales area

21. And also in the corridor of the first floor

23. And for some reason in the toilet

24. The coffin on the right is Muslim

25. The cat on the "roof" of the Muslim coffin is not included. By the way, there are four cats here - a cat and three cats. Keep them to control the absence of rodents that tend to eat the body.

26. In addition to the length (from 160 to 210), the coffins differ in width. For obese citizens, a standard coffin called a "deck" is provided.

For completely non-standard, it is possible to make a coffin to order.

27. If the death of a person was not so predictable, his body is sent for an autopsy. The autopsy takes place in rooms called "sectional rooms". Sectional look like this (the explosive metal tables are just here)

30. Autopsy tools

31. Another sectional, with its own tools

34. Hard lining-pillow under the head - numerous serifs from the tool

35. During the autopsy, the necessary samples, analyzes, samples are taken from the corpse

36. These samples are sent for analysis to the laboratories located on the second floor.

39. Place on duty on the second floor

40. Forensic experts have not been here for a long time, they left an empty room

41. But there are many laboratories

43. We look into several of them - a lot of equipment, understandable and not completely

46. ​​Next Lab

49. Just Jungle

50. And one more laba

53. This unit is alive. It regularly squeaks and moves, the lid rises, the drum with cans makes some movements

54. The archive is filled in real time

55. There is also an archive on the second floor, in a more familiar form

57. And this is what thin tinted sections of organs look like, which are considered to determine the causes of death

59. Research answers

60. There is also an auditorium where students come

62. Although there are only two floors and a basement, there is an elevator, because it is inconvenient to move along the ladder with a wheelchair. The elevator connects the first floor and the basement, and on the second floor is its engine room

65. There is also a ventilation room

67. Rest room for orderlies

68. And the dining room where the mortuary workers have lunch

69. Also, the morgue has a roof - in good weather, you can go to hang out on it, start fireworks, etc., but in winter there is knee-deep snow on it

70. Basement of the morgue. First of all, in the basement there is another sectional and main refrigerator

72. A bag is put on the head of a corpse so that the face does not dry out.

73. Three cats live in the basement (there are two in the frame, the third was washed off ahead of time)

74. An unused pressure chamber-on-wheels is stored, to which nurses go to smoke.

75. And old medical records of long-dead and buried citizens

76. Underground tunnels converge to the basement of the morgue, connecting all the buildings of the hospital

78. After all the autopsy procedures, make-up, dressing, etc., traditionally on the third day the body in the coffin is given to relatives - from this veranda, where artificial flowers covered with snow stand forlornly

79. Well, what can I say in conclusion? According to the result of my communication with the orderly working there, it’s not at all scary to work there, it’s interesting in places, but mostly ordinary. And we cross our fingers so that you and your loved ones will not soon find themselves in this or a similar institution.

Thank you for attention! I hope it was interesting and not too disgusting.

If you open the heavy door with the inscription "Morgue. Outsiders entrance forbidden" and walk a few steps, you can see an ordinary corridor with a couple of empty gurneys. After a couple of steps, you convince yourself that everything is not so scary - and then the smell overtakes you.

Remember the rhyme from childhood "What do crafts smell like?" - about the smell of dough in a bakery or the smell of shavings in a carpentry shop? Well, the morgue smells like death.

The wrong side of human life, its most unpleasant side - death, meets you in the morgue naked and unadorned. And people of various professions work at this penultimate stop of the express "life - eternity" - forensic experts, medical registrars and orderlies. These people have one task - not only to help relatives to see a loved one on their last journey, but also to determine whether the person went there due to someone's intent or fault.

The difference between a pathologist and a medical examiner is in fault

The average layman does not care about the specifics of the professions of a pathologist and forensic expert - until someone dies. Here you have to involuntarily delve into the subtleties of the profession.

Death in the hospital, without suspicion of violent death - the deceased is sent to the pathologist. His task is to establish: did he die as a result of the disease and was his death inevitable - perhaps the diagnosis was erroneous, perhaps the treatment was incorrect?

All other cases fall within the area of ​​​​responsibility of the forensic expert: whether a person died at home or on the street, whether there are signs of violent death or absent. The expert's task is to find the cause of death and answer the question: "Whose fault?" before himself and the law. Disease, coincidence or someone's malicious intent?

A man lived yesterday, loved - and he was loved, and today - he is on the sectional table. The reason for this is a disease that neither he, nor relatives, nor doctors suspected. It's non-violent sudden, death, but only a forensic expert can determine this.

A man fell in the bathroom and hit his head violent, premature death, let it be qualified as an accident.

A person gets on the table like a drowned man who fell through thin ice while fishing, but it turns out that first they crushed his head, and then threw his body into the hole - this is not just violent, it is criminal death.

Finding answers to all the riddles posed by a dead body is the job of a medical examiner.

Mortuary - penultimate stop

Forensic experts of the Office of the State Forensic Examination Committee of the Republic of Belarus for the Minsk region work in a morgue on the outskirts of the capital. The bodies of the dead and dead are brought here from several districts of the region.

- The complex consists of several buildings - in addition to the mortuary, administrative premises, forensic medical examination department, it houses a funeral services store and a farewell hall, - the state medical forensic expert starts the tour Mikhail Klimenko.

Before us are three doors, as in a gloomy fairy tale. If you go straight - you will get into a ritual store, if you go to the left - you will find yourself in a mortuary, to the right - you will visit the "department of a forensic medical examination for the reception of living persons."

- This is an outpatient appointment, at which an examination of persons is carried out to determine the nature of the severity of bodily injuries, and if it is simpler, an examination of the victims,- continues our guide.

It turns out that even among forensic experts there is a specialization. In addition to experts involved in the reception of living persons and autopsies, there are also histologists - they conduct research on tissue samples and determine the time, causes of death and prescription of injuries from them. Medical forensics can tell a lot from marks on clothing or a crime weapon. Chemists will answer the question of whether a person drank and how much, whether he took drugs or drugs, and if a person was poisoned, then with what kind of poison. Specialists biological department determine the objects of bioorigin and their belonging to one or another person - blood, secretions, hair, etc. But there are still expert biochemists and many other narrow specializations.

We are led to the left - to the morgue. We pass into a small corridor, doors, another corridor with empty gurneys - and then we are overtaken by a smell.

The guide, noticing our reaction, gives us time to get used to him, showing us the sanitary room. In a small room with a glass roof fit several desks, a sofa and even a refrigerator with a microwave.

- How can you eat here?

- A person gets used to everything. I no longer smell, sniffed for 2 months, says one of the nurses.

In his opinion, the work in the morgue is calm, at the same time interesting, and, as we could see, it sets you in a philosophical mood.

- Aren't you afraid of the dead?

- Now I'm more afraid of the living.

Painting on the wall in the sanitary room: specificity - appropriate

Everyone needs to be respected - both the living and the dead.

The dead and dead enter the morgue from the back door. A minibus pulls up, the doors swing open, and a gurney with a body rolls out. Orderlies are in charge of receiving and processing documents, they also conduct an inventory of property and prepare the body for an autopsy.

The brain protects its owner from shock - corpses on gurneys are not perceived as people, but rather like mannequins or wax sculptures. It is all the more strange to watch how the orderlies quickly but carefully shift the bodies and close the eyes of the dead - when someone close did not do it.

- Respect everyone - both the living and the dead, one of the orderlies remarks.

The autopsy itself is carried out in a sectional room, which is separated from the rest of the morgue by a room that serves as either a dressing room or a preoperative room. In this small room, experts and their assistants prepare for the autopsy: they put on special equipment - a blouse, pants, a dressing gown, an apron, a cap, a mask and special shoes.

Sectional - a small, unexpectedly bright room. In addition to a huge lamp, there is a large window with a frosted film, such glass transmits light well, but does not allow those passing by it to see what is happening in the room.

- Lighting is an indispensable assistant in our work. A simple example: when a bruise is just formed, it is burgundy, then turns blue, turns green, turns yellow. It is important for an expert to determine when he appeared, and natural light does not allow you to make a mistake.

On the sides of the entrance to the room - two metal sectional table. In some ways, they look like huge shower trays, the built-in sink, shower and drain for liquids add similarities.

There is also a small desk in the sectional room. During the autopsy, a medical registrar works behind him, whose task is to help the expert, leading the autopsy protocol under dictation. This position is usually occupied by women with an average medical education.

The tools that the expert uses during the autopsy look intimidating - a sectional knife, scissors, a saw, a hammer, a measuring spoon and something else, it is simply scary to ask about the purpose of some of them.

- This is not the whole set., - Mikhail Klimenko comments. - There is no need to place all the instruments on the preparation table - as needed, they are taken out of the cabinet and handed over by an assistant.

The orderlies shift the prepared body from the gurney to the table - the autopsy begins. The human brain is dissected using the "open book method": a scalp is removed from the head, the skull is opened - this is done with an electric saw - the brain is taken out and cut into "leaves". The corpse itself is usually opened according to the Shor method. A median incision is made on the body, through which the entire organ complex is removed, starting from the tongue and ending with the rectum. The expert must weigh each organ and carefully examine, describing the condition and damage to the medical registrar. Samples are taken immediately for histological, chemical and other analyses.

- Stories that we take organs for experiments or feeding to pets are stories. From each organ we take a fragment half a centimeter thick and 1-2 centimeters long. After analysis, all biological samples are disposed of by cremation,- says the expert.

In the morning, the expert performed three autopsies - all three died of natural causes. And only in one case, the specialist could not immediately accurately determine the cause of death - despite the obvious signs of heart failure, the deceased drank a lot of alcohol, so the test results will be able to give an accurate answer to the question "alcohol poisoning or heart failure".

After opening, all organs are placed in the body, and the nurse sews up the incision. Then the body is washed, put in order and begin to prepare for transfer to relatives.

On one of the tables there is a cheerfully colored blanket, on it is a set of cosmetics. Relatives often ask: "Make it prettier"

We are relieved to go outside. The light seems unusually bright, the air - unusually fresh, and life - beautiful and amazing.

You can and should be afraid of death, but it will not be possible to avoid it.

People die every day. Unfortunately, not a single duty of a forensic expert can do without autopsies.

On average, the morgue of the Office of Forensic Medical Examinations in the Minsk region, serving the Minsk, Logoisk districts and Zaslavl, receives 3-4 "patients" a day.

The medical examiner talks about what kills Belarusians.

- In my opinion, the most dangerous killer is alcohol. One way or another, it becomes the cause of death in half the cases.

A person who does not drink much has a protective mechanism - as soon as he "goes through" the norm, the gag reflex comes into play, which frees the body from excess alcohol. In an alcoholic or just a person who drinks a lot, the reaction is suppressed. He goes beyond the line where alcohol is absorbed in any quantities, but the body can no longer cope with such doses, which leads to death - alcohol poisoning.

There are also cases of poisoning by alcohol substitutes - various liquids not intended for internal use, but nevertheless used instead of alcoholic beverages, ranging from cologne to "singed" vodka based on technical alcohols.

Another reason for numerous deaths due to alcohol: after drinking, he fell from the balcony; got hit by a car in a state of intoxication; quarrels and conflicts in a drunken stupor, which often end in a stabbing, fight and death.

And if we add to all of the above all those diseases that arise on the basis of alcohol abuse and ultimately lead to death ...

The expert is also frightened by the number of suicides.

- I don't do statistics, but there are too many of them. Someone gets tired of fighting the disease, someone - with lack of money, someone - with loneliness. It is customary to feel sorry for suicides, but I cannot do this. Working with death every day, it is hard to imagine that someone of their own free will can refuse such a gift as life.

The worst thing is that suicides have become "younger". Mikhail Klimenko is not talking about those over 30, - we are talking about teenagers. Recently, he had to deal with the autopsy of a tenth grader.

- The child hanged himself because of unhappy love. And this is not an isolated case. What is going on in the minds of these children?

Listening to an expert, one involuntarily asks the question: is there at least one positive side?

- The medical examiner must determine the exact cause of death. He can establish that the driver who hit a person lying on the road has already run over a corpse. Or she can prove that a woman who was severely beaten by her husband for decades and who only once rebuffed him, pushing him away, did not cause his death. He didn't die from a fall, it was alcohol poisoning that killed him.Do you think the triumph of justice is a sufficient reason to love your profession?

A visit to the morgue and conversations with a forensic expert leave an ambivalent impression that is impossible to formulate: "we will all be there" is intertwined with the thought "how you want to live."

Death is to be feared, but it cannot be avoided. You can only make every effort to ensure that, having lived your life happily ever after, die in a dream quietly and calmly, surrounded by relatives and friends.

The editors would like to thank the Office of the State Forensic Examination Committee of the Republic of Belarus for the Minsk Region for their assistance in preparing the material.

Morgue employees can tell a lot of unusual and creepy stories from their practice. Most of the episodes are connected with the dead, who decided to give "signs of life." More often they are encountered by those who remain in the morgue on night duty.

“I worked at one time in intensive care. When sending the dead to the mortuary, we always wrote the number of the case history on the body of the deceased in order to avoid confusion.

Once, after midnight, a hopeless patient died. Leaving my partner in the ward, I ran away to our other department on an urgent order from the doctor. When I returned, the body had already been taken away. Only after some time it turned out that the partner forgot to write the “serial” number on the body.

Given the malignant nature of the pathologist, a scandal seemed imminent. I tell her - since I forgot, go now, catch up. And the girl is hysterical, new, not yet used to everything, and who wants to go to the morgue at night? Armed with a bunch of keys, I had to go down to the underground passage, since the morgue was about a hundred meters from the hospital.

In the refrigeration chamber, I began to throw back the sheets on the gurneys in order to identify the corpse by its face. Suddenly she caught a rustle. I turn around - and I see that on a nearby gurney a hand dangled from the corpse. Well, I think, you never know, they put it wrong. She straightened her hand and looked at him. A very young guy with a grimace of anguish on his face and half-open eyes, but not the one I'm looking for.

I went further between the wheelchairs. I finally found "my" dead man. I write the number and again I hear a quiet rustle ... I look around: on that gurney, the sheet hanging along the edges slightly sways, as if from the wind, and this time the corpse's leg is slowly hanging down.

For some reason, it didn’t work out to yell, I pressed myself against the wall and reached the door along it. She slammed the door and for a long time could not get the key into the lock. After a few steps, I heard a thud, as if this damned gurney had crashed into the iron door of the cell.

Once at the top, I couldn’t light a cigarette in any way - my hands were shaking. Then I found out that this guy was after a car accident, fought for his life for a very long time, but lost.

scratches

A typical "Morg" horror story looks like this. A new employee comes to the morgue, stays on the night shift, and that night something terrible and inexplicable happens to him.

Here, for example, is such a story.

“Somehow I had to get a job as a night duty officer in one of the morgues. The work is not dusty, after three days, the clientele is accommodating, without any special complaints. At first, of course, it was scary and disgusting. Then nothing, I got used to it.

One day I go on duty. Mitrich appeared in the evening. He probably worked in the morgue for twenty years. He comes and says: “Tonight, close yourself in the duty room and don’t go out, no matter what happens there. The night is bad. The first night of the full moon, anything can happen.”

Here, of course, I broke through. With what only epithets I did not award Mitrich! It seemed insulting to me that the poorly educated watchman of me, a man with higher education, thought to scare. Mitrich listened silently and replied: "As you know, I warned you." He turned around and went to himself.

After work, the senior dissector stayed with me to talk on various topics. Late in the evening my interlocutor left. I locked the door behind him and was left alone. I checked the freezer, looked to see if everything was in order in the dissecting rooms, put out the light and returned to my duty room.

It's like this: the front door, next to the duty room and a long T-shaped corridor, at the end of which there are doors leading to the corpse vault, dissecting rooms and other rooms. Several lamps are lit in the hallway all night. In the duty room, the light should also be on, but the watchmen, if they go to bed, always turn it off.

Doors, except for the entrance, do not close anywhere, just tightly closed. There is a latch on the door in the duty room, but the door was always left wide open. It was the same that night. The street is quiet: no wind, no traffic noise. There is a low moon in the sky. I read Grimelshausen, and from time to time I listen to the silence.

At midnight, I was drawn to sleep. Decided to lay down. And then I hear the door creak in the corridor. Carefully, almost inaudibly, but creaked. He looked out of the duty room: in the corridor the light was dim, diffused, but where the doors were, it was dark, nothing could be seen. Somehow it didn't feel right. However, I think I'll go and see why the door opened.

I went, and in order to give myself confidence, I step firmly, the steps resound with a deaf echo. And then I notice, no, even, rather, I feel - ahead, in the darkness, some kind of barely perceptible movement. I distinctly recall Mitrich's words: "Close up and don't come out, no matter what happens!"

I slowly retreat to the duty room, slam the door and click the bolt. Along the corridor, the rustle of quick steps, breaking off at the very door. Then outside the door is strongly pulled by the handle. It lends itself to a few millimeters, the valve does not let it go further. An indistinct dark silhouette flashes through the gap, and a distinct sweet smell of a corpse seeps into the duty room.

The next moment, I grab the doorknob with wild force. And from the corridor something insanely creepy is trying to get to me! He scratches the door, pulls the handle, rummages around the jambs and walls, and all this happens in complete silence. Only pulls from behind the door with the smell of formalin and cold.

With dawn, deathly silence sets in in the corridor. Nobody scratches, breaks through the door anymore. But for a long time I still can’t let go of the pen: I just stand there, clinging to it with fingers that have turned white from tension.

The insistent call brings me back to reality and forces me to open the door. The corridor is ordinary and empty, which is why it seems that everything that happened at night was a wild, nightmare dream. The lock, as always, is stuck, and I cannot open it for a long time. Finally I succeed. On the porch, the changer grins merrily: “Well, you are healthy to sleep! I'm calling all the time!"

I mutter indistinctly that I had a great drink of alcohol, that I didn’t hear anything, and that it’s better not to touch me today. The work day is in full swing, and I just can't bring myself to go home. I nervously smoke on the porch at the service entrance and desperately try to understand what happened at night - reality or a dream. A senior dissector is smoking nearby, he asks me something, I answer him something, and in my head I have only one thought: “It was a dream, this cannot be!”

Then an intern comes out onto the porch: “Andrei Andreevich, a strange case. I am preparing the corpse of a drowned man for autopsy, well, the one that was brought the day before yesterday, and he has a lot of white paint under his nails.

"What's so strange about that?" the senior dissector asks lazily.

“The paint is dried up, old, but the fractures and breaks of the nails on the hands of the corpse, in my opinion, are posthumous, fresh.”

They leave, and I go to the door to the duty room. At the height of human growth, on a smooth white surface, semicircular scratches and uneven chips clearly appear.

Ghosts in the corpse vault

“It was a couple of years ago. I then worked as a night watchman in the morgue. During my first shift, the men began to intimidate me with all sorts of stories. And the old shift worker said that I should never close the doors. For some reason he didn't strike me as a joker.

Of course, I would never have left the door open if I had not been reassured by a woman. Her name was Nadezhda Solntseva. She said that besides me, other people stay here on the night shift.

On the first night, everything was like that: there were only three people left, including Solntseva herself. They were all in the storage of bodies (they smeared their heels with grease), and I was in the gatehouse. Everything was calm, except that somewhere the parquet would creak, but I blamed everything on the dope I had smoked. Two nights have passed

And then I accidentally came across a dossier on my replacement. I am a curious person and decided to look there. I remember that I was amazed - it was written there that he was only 37 years old, but he looked at all 75-80. And it also said that he was in a civil marriage with Solntseva.

On the eve of my third shift, the shift came up to me and said that he would stay on duty with me today, because my wife allegedly left and did not leave the keys to the apartment. I was surprised, because Solntseva was at that moment in the dining room, I saw her there five minutes ago. Well, to hell with it, I think.

And that night, no one stayed in the morgue, except for the two of us and that same Solntseva. But I got a bit nervous. The old man noticed this and said: “Calm down, if you drink, then go down to the store and take vodka, I will also refuel with you.” I thought it was a good idea: I'll go, get distracted, it will be calmer.

I walked slowly, I was gone for about forty minutes. On the way to the mortuary, I heard wild female screams that made me shudder. I ran faster, you never know, the duty is mine!

When I ran inside - everything was quiet, my shift was sitting in the corner and breathing heavily. He held a rosary in his hands and quickly recited prayers. His grey hair were disheveled, there were bruises on the face, the eyes were empty.

Deciding to figure out what was the matter, I ran to the vault to see what was there with Solntseva. But she wasn't inside. I returned to the shift and began to question him, but he continued to pray. I remembered about the vodka, opened it, started pouring it into his glass, he saw it, began to moo helplessly, like a dumb man, and reach for the bottle.

After I gave him the bottle, he began to drink greedily and walked away a little. Then he took me to the storage of bodies, led me to one of the refrigerators, and I saw that the label says: "Solntseva Nadezhda."

Here I was shocked. I quickly grabbed my backpack and left. The next day I came to find out what was going on, but it turned out that no one had even heard of Solntseva or this old man!

A visit to an abandoned hospital

But what exactly happened to the heroes of this story, it’s hard to even imagine.

"My name is Vitalik. I am 11 years old, I live in the city of Sevastopol. My friends and I are lovers of walking around all sorts of wastelands and construction sites. Once they found one place, a five-story abandoned building - a former tuberculosis department with a morgue. After the lessons, we drank soda there, ate crackers, etc.

Once we all failed a test and went in a bad mood to this abandoned hospital. There were about five or six of us. Since we were studying on the second shift, it was already dark. My friend Seryoga offered to go to the morgue. At first the guys were scared, but then we still went there.

It turned out to be scary inside: a dark corridor, scratched walls and all sorts of cones. But the worst was waiting for us ahead: some kind of creature was lying on the bed. When it moved, I could see the straitjacket. It was definitely a man.

We all rushed to the exit and never approached this hospital again. Only six months later we learned that eight mutilated bodies had been found in that morgue. It turned out that they had lain there for about a year. It shocked us so much that we didn’t go out for a walk for about a month.”

Of course, one cannot vouch for the reliability of all the above stories. But it cannot be denied that many strange and incomprehensible things happen in life. And where there is a fragile line between life and death, it is especially striking.

The morning call woke me up..
"Hello, who is this?"
- "This is Yuri, are you going to the morgue?"
"Maybe tomorrow is better?" as always awake, trying to delay the time ..
- "Look for yourself .. tomorrow you may not get there, and then you have to wait a long time .."
“Yes, of course, I’ll be there in two hours, I still need to get ready ...”

"Life is the beginning of death, and death is the beginning of life"

I am met by Konstantin Evgenievich Nemirov, head of the pathoanatomical department. And as you probably already understood, today's photo essay from the series “how it works” will be about the morgue.

Morgue - a special room at hospitals, institutions of forensic medical examination for storage, identification, autopsy and issuance of corpses for burial.

Morgues are subdivided into pathoanatomical (for examining corpses in case of death from a disease) and forensic (for examining and examining corpses in case of violent death, if it is suspected, in case of death of a patient whose identity has not been established, or if there are complaints from relatives about the treatment being carried out) .
AT contemporary practice the name "mortuary" was preserved only for forensic institutions; in hospitals, autopsies are performed in pathological departments.

The mortuary consists of a hall for the study of corpses (sectional) and ancillary facilities.


By the way, the pathologist deals not only with dead people, they also conduct pathological and histological studies of “samples” from living people in order to confirm or refute the preliminary diagnosis of the attending physician. Right in front of me, Konstantin Evgenievich “refuted” one of these “diagnoses”! Now “Vasily” can live in peace, the suspicion of a cancerous tumor has been removed from him.

Here, under this microscope, the “material” received from the patient is placed for research. If you wish, you can photograph the “whole process”, though Konstantin Evgenievich does not have special microscopes with the function of photographing and he uses a “digital soap box” leaning against the eyepiece of the microscope for these purposes!

Move on. Laboratory, normal working day, you can immediately get a certificate that you died

And that's why everyone is very happy with my arrival))

all sorts of jars with physical. solutions.

Hall for the study of corpses

Of course, I expected to see what would be “like in the movies” but no, everything is simple and without any automation and glamor

tools for opening are also the most common, without automation and electric drive. All work, so to speak, is done by hand and in the old fashioned way.

The door to the freezer for troupes..

(Photos can be enlarged if desired)

Earlier in one of my posts I already wrote about such “exhibits”
The project “It is fashionable to be healthy. Stop the drugs."

So don't drink, don't smoke, and don't do drugs! etc.

On the last journey