Back when I was waiting for the Order’s website to be back up and running, I posted these amazing photos from the 70’s of high school students visiting a crematory on the Order’s temporary Tumblr.
Well, it turns out there is also a photo series of high schoolers visiting a morgue. I think from the 80’s this time. Be still my damn heart.
Doesn’t it look like maroon varsity over here is pulling a weapon out of his jacket? Watch out coroner-lady!
I could look at you all day, Coroner Caroline McCrazyEyes.
“During the first year I tried to have the students visit the Ulster County Morgue located in the Kingston Hospital. The person in charge was a Ms. Finger. When she heard my request there was some alarm in her voice as she immediately denied the request. She said something to the effect of, “How can you tramatize high school students that way. Don’t you know that just last week we had the body of a man that was partially eaten by his dog. How do you think the students would react to that?” How could I argue?”
” The most unusual incident we had over the years was a student collapsing in the Benedictine morgue. There were a large number of students in the room and it was quite hot. The kids were motionless as they listened to the lecturer explaining the functions of the instruments. A girl fainted. She fell forward with her hands at her sides and everyone stepped aside. Her head landed on the concrete floor. After she was revived, a lump appeared on her forehead that looked as it someone had placed a golf ball under the skin. She was wisked to the Emergency Room for examination. Fortunately, her mother was one of the class chaperones and was there for the entire episode. This was probably the only time a patient went from the morgue to a hospital room! “
Ooohh I would totally put you in a CBS primetime drama about post mortem examination, Dr. Hottie.
This is worth reading. Doesn’t this sound like the best visit ever?
“On one occasion there was a baby wrapped in a shroud that the tour guide held in her arms for the students to see. They were impressed! In the St. Francis Hospital Morgue in Poughkeepsie there was a multi-door refrigerator. There was a body in one of the compartments. There were a few body parts being stored in another (arms and legs). In Vassar Hospital there was a man that was shrouded in a sitting position. He had been burned in his car. Also, on one field trip the pathologist showed the students a simese twin fetus that was stored in formadehyde, and an example of a smoker’s lung tissue which was black instead of pink. “
I remember when the St. Andrew’s Priory School for Girls AP Bio class visited the Queen’s Hospital Morgue and we saw some fetus jars and it was the best thing that had ever happened in my life up to that point.