15 Things Autopsy Tech Swears To Never Do: “I Will Never Forget That Smell”

Working on my car with cheap jacks. Listen, I wouldn't be underneath my car anyway. I don't know what I'm looking at, but if I was, I'm not going to trust the $6.99 Harbor Freight jacks. Please spend a little bit more money. Your life is worth more than that.

Reaching my hand and or wearing untied shoelaces while operating heavy machinery, like a tractor or a really big lawn mower. If you Google what degloving is, you'll know why I said that one.

Bending over too far in the washer. If you've ever heard of positional asphyxia, I have done countless autopsies of people who have positional asphyxiated in their washing machine from leaning into it and getting stuck, and they can't get out. It's not the start of a fun movie. It's real life. It can happen to you. Especially if you're me and you're short.

Motorcycles. You can look cute with your cheeks hanging out all you want on the back of the motorcycle. But when you hit that pavement with nothing on your skin, the ground is the cheese grater, and you are the cheese. And please don't ruin that for everybody else.

Not being careful on stairs. 'Cause what we're not gonna do is— the last visual someone has of me isn't gonna be like a stomped-out cockroach at the end of the stairs. And then I essentially have to be airlifted up the stairs in a sheet from a bunch of firemen carrying me that way. That's not what you're gonna see of me. That's not it. It's painful, it's sometimes not fast, and that's not how you're gonna view me.

It kind of goes without saying, like motorcycles, wear your seatbelt. It's not cool to not wear your seatbelt anymore. Like, wear your seatbelt. Cause what's even more uncool is trying to think that you're cool and then having your sunroof open on a nice summer day, getting hit, getting in a rollover accident, getting halfway ejected out of your sunroof and getting cut in half. And you're not gonna be like the cute cut in half like the lady from Beetlejuice. They're gonna have a hard time putting you back together, so please wear your seatbelt.

When I'm elderly, I will not be eating steak. Baby girl, you can't chew anymore. You can't eat steak. You can't chew it, you're going to choke and die, and then you end up in the morgue, and I have to retrieve it from your esophagus, and it is disgusting. Please stop. Please stop eating steak when you're elderly.

Fracture burning. And this one may seem far-fetched, but there's a resurgence of it lately, in the past few years. Do not dismantle your microwave like a cr*ckhead and use the transformer to make pretty lightning bolts in your wood. Don't do it. Cause when you die, you're gonna look like the dude from Home Alone. Your hair is gonna be fried, and I'm gonna be able to see the electricity go through your entire body as it immediately stops your heart and burns your arms into that position.

Under no circumstances, ever. Please. If you take away one thing from this, let it be this. Do not ever say these words to somebody: What are you gonna do, stab me? What are you gonna do, shoot me? They are. They're going to shoot and or stab you. Both. Even worse. I don't know. Don't say that. That's stupid. Don't f*****g say that. I cannot tell you how many people I've autopsied, and those are their last words.

Botulism. This could be an irrational fear of mine. Botulism is like an extreme case of, like, the worst stomach flu you could ever have. It's a neurotoxin. And it happens when canned food is improperly sealed or, you know, someone does it themselves. So when papaw from down the street at the trailer park offers you homemade canned green beans, you can say yes, but don't eat that s**t. 'Cause the best case scenario is you're just gonna s**t your pants. Worst case scenario is you're gonna s**t your pants until you become paralyzed and die.

You wouldn't catch me dead getting any type of cut, burn, scrape that I'm not taking care of. Because what scares me even more than botulism is necrotizing fasciitis. Um, and that's where your skin is rotting and falling off. And the best way I can describe this to you is if you've ever made, like, the perfect top to a brownie pan, and it's, like, kind of caving in on some parts and, like, flaky on some parts, but, like, you can still see the underneath, that's what your skin's gonna look like. And it's not cute, it's not appetizing. And the smell is honestly horrific. It's one of the worst things I've ever smelled. I will never forget that smell. So please take care of your wounds thoroughly, please.

You wouldn't catch me dead, getting in a car accident, um, where I hit a fence. This may seem confusing, but let me explain to you. When you're going at a high rate of speed and you hit a junction of a fence, if it is a chain link fence or any kind of metal fence, chances are the poles are gonna be hollow. And what happens when you hit the junction of that? It's gonna come apart. And when that pole goes directly through the front of your car, through your steering wheel, and cuts a Swiss cheese hole into your chest that I then have to pull out like King Arthur in the morgue, you will understand why that is at the top of my list.

This is going to be controversial. You guys can totally argue amongst yourselves. No amount of arguing with me is going to change my mind based on the things that I have seen. Um, kratom is not safe. It's not safe. Quit pushing it on kids. Quit advertising it that way. It is not safe. It's not a safe pain management system. It's not safe. Please stop taking it. I'm tired of seeing people end up in the morgue because of this.

I wouldn't be carrying any type of breakable enclosure. So let's say, like if I had a pet snake and I was carrying it down the stairs to take to the basement, and I tripped and fell, and then it crushed into me, and then my body got to the morgue. Morgue staff was really scared the whole time they were doing my autopsy because they thought maybe the snake was inside of me. Not that I would know that from experience or anything.

A GI (Gastrointestinal bleeding) bleed. You're not gonna catch me dead doing anything that can give me a GI bleed later on in life. And if I get one, immediately fixed. Not only are they incredibly painful, but the mess they leave in your house is like finding a crime scene. You follow the puddles that you have left behind, whether it's from the top or the bottom, to find your body. Like bloody handprints. And I just can't be seen like that for my last dying days.