Down Among the Dead Men Read Online Free PDF Page B

supposedly restricted by manual handling guidelines from moving
Mr Patterson without proper equipment, but the hoist we had only lifted a maximum of twenty stone, so he reckoned that the manual handling guidelines might have to go out the window in this case
and he would therefore just have to hope and pray that nobody got injured doing it. He wasn’t very happy about this but, as he pointed out, since there had been no PM request, there was no
problem yet.
    Unbelievably, another day went by and there was still nothing from the Coroner’s office. Clive spoke to Neville on several occasions and was starting to get a little agitated, but Neville
was having trouble getting hold of Mr Patterson’s GP and needed more medical history before he could book it. Mr P still lay in the body store, on the collapsed trolley. He was becoming more
and more offensive; the green colouring was working its way up his chest and he was making his presence known throughout the whole department. People were starting to pass comments, as if we were
the ones making the stink. We needed this post-mortem done and out of the way as soon as possible. I had discovered that he had one advantage, though: after an hour or so in the mortuary, you
don’t notice the smell because your nose just gives up the struggle. But we were now having to put families off coming to see their deceased relatives because the odour was seeping through
into the viewing area and I could hear Clive lie to them on the phone about how we were fully booked with the police over the viewing times; and to top it all, there was still no news from
Neville.
    And then, like a miracle, sitting in Clive’s inbox the next morning was the PM request for Mr P. One problem down, but another one to be resolved. We needed to get Mr P
on the table. The hydraulics on the trolley refused to work under the strain of the weight, so Mr P was at a level beneath the dissection table and we couldn’t slide him directly on to it. We
needed manpower so Graham rang the porters’ lodge and asked them to send two burly porters down to the mortuary. Within ten minutes, they arrived. They were astounded by what they saw and
smelled, but they got to work straight away. It took all five of us to do it, but we managed to raise the trolley by sheer force, and quickly pulled Mr P onto the table.
    All of which effort only meant another problem: he was on the table, but now we had to get him undressed. Graham was not going to be able to carefully unbutton his clothes, fold them nicely and
place them in a bag. They were going to have to be cut up the middle and pulled away (complete with skin and slime) as Clive and I rocked Mr P from side to side on the table; that operation alone
left us feeling completely exhausted.
    Once undressed, he did not present a pretty picture; both sides of his body were hanging down off the table, he was going a very dark, slimy green, and various blisters had started to appear
over his body as his skin began to break down. Graham was doing the evisceration on this body and, although understandably not cheerful, was professional and resigned about it. What with Mr P being
so slimy, he explained that he needed to be extra careful of slipping with the knife and taking off one of his own fingers with it. He said that the hardest job with cutting open an obese person is
the layer upon layer of fat you have to get through. Once that is done, taking out the organs is a doddle as they aren’t usually so much bigger than those of an average person. He was huffing
and puffing, trying to get the fat to stay back while at the same time trying to reach the organs, which even he – and he is not short – could only do on tiptoes. All the tools he was
using had sheen to them now from the layers of greasy fat that clung to them. Clive made various comment about how he possibly needed to tie some rope around Graham’s ankles in case he fell
in.
    And never believe an obese person