If These Bodies Could Talk: True Tales of a Medical Examiner. Алексей Решетун

with a low neckline. In these cases, while performing the examination, the medical examiner will take pains to respect the family's wishes. After he or she has finished, all of the incisions will be sewn up, and sometimes padded with specific material so that no blood left in the girl's blood vessels will leak onto her clothes.

      During an autopsy, examiners remove biological material from the body to carry out further studies. They nearly always take samples of blood, urine, and other biological fluids to detect any presence and concentration of alcohol; pieces of internal organs for microscopic examination; and sometimes entire organs (in cases of suspected poisoning, drowning, etc.) and bones and skin in cases of injury. In some cases, the police investigator will draw up a list of what needs to be taken, while in others, it is up to the medical examiner to decide. I think the fact that occasionally organs are removed for further lab study gives some people the idea that morgues are involved in the organ trade, which could not be further from the truth. But we will talk about that a little later on.

      People who are not familiar with forensics often ask me: "What do you do with the organs when you are done with them?" Hundreds of times I have explained that all organs are considered to be part of the human body, and once we are done examining them, the majority are simply put back, with some exceptions when they are needed for additional study. After that, the orderly on duty will embalm the body or sew it up, clean it, and prepare it for burial. They will dress them, make them up, and place them in a casket. Mortuary workers are actual miracle workers, and thanks to them, relatives can bury their loved ones and have an open casket funeral, even if the deceased person suffered severe injuries.

      Once the examiner has finished, he or she will issue a death certificate, which allows the person's relatives to bury the body. In about a month, test results will come back, and the examiner will issue a final report – this is the part that interests the police.

      So, back to our original question – to cut or not to cut?

      In the case of a pathologist's examination, relatives have the right to refuse an autopsy. Legally, they are allowed to do so in these cases.

      However, things are somewhat different when someone decides a forensic examination is necessary. In these cases, there is no right to refuse. As much as a medical examiner may feel empathy for the relatives of the deceased, it is not up to them whether they proceed or not. The investigator has already decided that a forensic examination must take place. Often, relatives will try to argue that the person's last will did not include an autopsy, or cite religious and ethnic reasons, or note that their loved one suffered from chronic diseases. But their efforts are in vain. The examiner is not the one who makes the decision, and he or she is obligated to examine the body. At most, we might hold off on the autopsy and send the relatives back to the investigator to ask that the body be handed back to them, but the likelihood of this happening is very slim. Over a year, the police might return one or two bodies to the family in these circumstances, and as a rule, they are almost always the bodies of children who had been very ill, who for some reason had been sent for a forensic examination.

      Sometimes, cases appear obvious – an elderly person dies, and there is no suspicion of violent death. But once the examination has begun, it reveals that the person was, in fact, murdered. Remember the wisdom of Buddha – "There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed." Those words are more relevant than ever today.