Purging
I’ll never forget the first time I heard one of my colleagues mentioned the word “purge.” Purging is the phenomenon of someone’s bowels releasing either air or fluid through the mouth, nose, or other openings in the body. It can occur on a freshly dead body or a body that has already been embalmed.
In moving dead bodies around to get them on a gurney for transport, often I would push too hard on the abdomen, causing the body to purge. Not only is this just generally gross, but it can also be dangerous since we never know what diseases a person may have had. When purging occurred, I had to make sure that I did not breath the air, or if there was any type of fluid, it needed to be cleaned up promptly. Luckily, I always had rubber gloves when handling dead bodies, which came in handy when dealing with purgers.
We assume that dead bodies are completely dead, but in fact, the body still has chemicals, air, and fluids activly settling down after death. Purging was always somthing that I was aware of, and I tried not to cause it if possible.
Some bodies would continue to purge even after embalming. This usually was embalming fluid seeping out of the mouth, nose, eyes, or even through the skin. For family viewings, this type of purging always had to be monitored and discreetly cleaned without the family seeing the problem.
Note* I was going to put a picture here, but I just could not think of one.
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