When I Stuck My Hand into a Corpse

The story I’m about to tell is the honest-to-God truth. I guess something in this spooky Halloween air reminded me of my time hanging out in a cadaver lab with my best friend, Kat.

Kat is a pediatric physical therapist, and our university had a very intensive 4 year PT program. So intensive that regular semesters were 19 or 20 hours, plus lab hours, and required summer sessions. One weekend every summer, all the Greeks returned to campus to hang out, and it was during that weekend that I accompanied Kat to her cadaver lab.

I can’t remember whether she asked anyone else if they were interested and they were too chicken turned her down, but I do know I was the only one who wanted to go. So that sunny summer afternoon, she and I walked to the science building and headed down to the basement. I remember her and I pausing just before she opened the lab door, her saying something like, “OK. Are you ready? Are you sure you are ready?” I confidently replied with a firm, “YES” and entered the room without hesitation.

The scene before me was this: Four tables of dead people, with a stack of (occupied) body bags along one wall. I stood there for a few moments just taking it in. Kat began walking through the room, weaving through the tables and introducing me to each corpse (the students had given each cadaver a name). There were both men and women cadavers, but the one I walked up to first was a woman.

By this point of the summer, cadaver lab was nearing it’s end, so their chests were wide open and skulls hollowed out. Even some parts of their arms and legs had skin peeled away. Kat began touching and poking and teaching me about what each bone was, how joints work, and where organs had sat in the belly. She was genuinely interested in me learning from this experience, and I could tell how much she valued this hands-on lab opportunity.

As time passed, I felt gutsy enough to touch them. Actually, I started out by putting my hand inside this old lady’s empty skull (the top of her skull was cut off). I think I touched a few more bones in the chest area, though couldn’t bring myself to pull on the tendons to make the corpse’s body parts move. Because Kat did that. And she was mildly amused. Yes, the one thing that I do distinctly remember is Kat making the old lady wave at me by pulling on the exposed tendons in her arms.

Would you find that creepy? If given the chance, would you visit a cadaver lab?

Have a happy and safe Halloween!