Brickbat: That Takes Guts

The families of six people who died in Alabama prisons have sued the commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections, the University of Alabama System, and others, claiming their family members' bodies were returned to them after state-mandated autopsies with missing organs. The autopsies were performed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Look, no one is saying that Alabama is killing its prisoners to harvest their organs for wealthy political patrons...

[SQRLSY]

They are building Frankenstein's monster!!!

(Let's do the Monster Mash!)

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

They fell off the back of a truck or sank in an unfortunate boating accident.

[Longtobefree]

What proof is there that the organs were actually there prior to the autopsy?

[Chipper Chunked Chile Con Congress (ex NCW)]

Right! Were those organs inventoried at any point prior?! Those prisoners might very well have shown up without a spleen!

[Longtobefree]

More likely they traded them for drugs - - - - - - - - -

[Brandybuck]

This is why Mystery Meat Night at the Alabama Pen is so weird.

[SRG2]

QI saves the day!

[Vernon Depner]

Removing abdominal organs before embalming is standard procedure.

[Rossami]

1. No, they’re not. Cavity embalming (the step that deals with internal organs) involves embalming the organs in place. (For those interested in the gory details, see the "cavity embalming" section here.)
2. Coroners do not embalm their subjects after an autopsy. They rely on cold to inhibit decomposition until the body can be turned over to a funeral home (where the embalming happens).

That said, internal organs are routinely removed for inspection during an autopsy. Pretty much at the pathologist’s sole discretion, they may be retained for further inspection – which means the family loses. But even if not needed for further inspection, they can be incinerated instead of returned in most (maybe all?) jurisdictions – so the family loses again.

Which gets to 3 – if returned, the organs are sealed in plastic bags, making embalming of the organs irrelevant.

[GroundTruth]

In any event, this all suggest shoddy record keeping at least, by the coroner.

Sue their asses for that, if nothing more.

[Gasman]

I was an autopsy tech at a university hospital. Paid may way through college.. What happens in the autopsy suite will differ from what might happen in the funeral home if the body has not had an autopsy performed.

Standard autopsy: The brain is removed after cutting the scalp open ear to ear and sawing the cranium off, then sectioned (cut into 1/2 inch slices), from which samples are taken to make microscope slides). The guts removed from esophagus to rectum, sliced opened lengthwise to examine the interior. The heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, pancreas, and adrenals are removed, sliced through to examine the interior, and again more microscope slides.
These organs do not embalm well because they are no longer attached to the circulatory system, and to get formalin into those tissues they would have to be individually perfused. And sliced or cut up organs would only be able to be pickled by floating in a vat of formalin.
So like the ancient Egyptians preparing a mummy, the brain and chitlins of the abdomen are sent to the incinerator. Firmer organs might be placed back inside to be partially embalmed by the funeral home. Or maybe the funeral home would send them to the incinerator; but that is a separate thing to be explored.
So yeah, what you see at most funerals is literally the shell of a man.

[Public Entelectual]

The maxim of Alabaman Carcass Law is Corpus delecti non habeas