r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/vaguenonetheless • Feb 04 '23
Autopsy tech explains what happens with pacemaker after autopsy Video
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u/IndependentDuty1346 Feb 04 '23
So when the dog dies with the pacemaker, do they do the same thing and give it to a cat or something to pass it down the line? 😉
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u/LatterNeighborhood58 Feb 04 '23
They clean it up and sell it as lightly used to people again.
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u/MoreGaghPlease Feb 05 '23
Yes, after dog it goes:
Horse → cow → dog (again) → cat → bird → spider → fly → old lady (I don't know why)
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u/ClamhouseSassman Feb 05 '23
Does any vet know? Can they be infinitely reused? That is fascinating.
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u/ThereIsAJifForThat Feb 04 '23
"1 out of every 5, I pocket, I have been slowly combining them into a massive battery that powers my house. My house looks like a rave club inside!"
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u/Zealousideal_Echo589 Feb 04 '23
I work with pacemakers and defibs. Mostly get buried along with patients or removed prior to cremation. Very rarely are they interrogated prior to this happening. Usually they spend years in random buckets before some goes "holy shit, we've got loads of these - we'd better do something with them"
Not really black boxes, as it only tells you what happens with a rate or a rhythm, can't help with a pumping function failure, stroke etc....
Also if there is enough battery life they can be donated to people in developing nations (or animal) - check out the charity myheartyourheart or pace4life 🙂
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u/Andy5416 Feb 05 '23 edited Feb 05 '23
I've always found a macabre fascination with final heart rhythms.
A person in the ICU who's lived their life or has a DNR is quite different than unexpected cardiac arrests or sudden traumas even.
Idk how else to explain it if you don't experience it day to day..
Yes I know there's an actual physiological reasoning behind why this is, disease processes etc, but watching a persons heart rhythm who's finally taken off life suppoet is far different from a heart rhythm thats trying to suddenly prevent total organ failure in an otherwise healthy body.
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u/Logical-Wasabi7402 Feb 05 '23
Expected losses are easier to cope with than sudden and potentially traumatic ones.
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Feb 04 '23
Grandpa just died. How old was he? 102. You better get an autopsy to find out his cause of death.
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u/MorningStrange1 Feb 04 '23
I work in a funeral home and crematorium--the number of times that we get requests like this. 🙄
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u/weirdgroovynerd Feb 04 '23
It sounds like pacemakers are like the black boxes in airplanes.
Except for the part about saving dogs.
Cool video OP, thanks for posting.
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u/MoreGaghPlease Feb 05 '23
Actually a lot of people don't know this, but after a plane crash, the black box can be recovered and donated to an animal hospital.
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u/ScaryHarry15 Feb 04 '23
This looks disturbingly like a kitchen
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u/Stubahka Feb 05 '23
I was unaware that they allow local butchers to preform heart surgery now a days.
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u/jonhasglasses Feb 04 '23
Why is the floor so fucked?
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u/Ambers_on_fire Feb 04 '23
And why is he dressed so casually? I mean, I've never been employed in this profession but like I wouldn't just wear a baseball cap and one of my t-shirts...at least I don't think I would...maybe I don't know shit. Just seems odd to me.
I think the floor is probably because of walking and table wheels.
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u/Zuzublue Feb 04 '23
Well I’m not wearing my SIX THOUSAND DOLLAR SUIT to perform an autopsy.
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u/Ambers_on_fire Feb 04 '23
You could if you were wearing a lab coat or other PPE...which is definitely what I should've asked...
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u/dboy999 Feb 05 '23
if he wasnt actively doing an autopsy, hes probably dressed down from PPE and doing random but necessary stuff around the room.
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u/RepresentativeKeebs Feb 05 '23
They wear a mask and eye protection when cutting. Long sleeves would get covered in blood, so it's easier to wear short sleeves and just wash off your whole arm.
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u/badgerj Feb 04 '23
Have you been to a full scale butcher! This is just par for the course. I guarantee they clean up every night!?
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u/Dineology Feb 05 '23
Probably because it gets cleaned religiously with heavy duty chemicals and that makes for some real bad wear and tear real quick.
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u/dboy999 Feb 05 '23
beside what the other comment mentioned about heavy, constant cleaning i imagine its also torn up by the wheels of all their tables/cabinets/machinery etc over time. and really, if its a morgue/MEs office it doesnt need to be nice and shiny. its a work space more or less like any other.
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u/MoonyNotSunny Feb 05 '23
These folks all have the same look in their eyes. Must have something to do with cutting dead people all day every day.
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u/walnut853 Feb 04 '23
When I joined the police (UK) I went to a post mortem and they had a glass display cabinet with pace makers from all over the world, it was like a macabre trophy cabinet
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u/Leashypooo Feb 04 '23
Why don’t they inform the family that they removed the device that may have downloadable information on it? Too much trouble?
Edit: now I’m wondering what the resale value is
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u/DoctorBlazes Feb 04 '23
What information would the family want?
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u/MapleSyrupFacts Feb 04 '23
It's like a blackbox. It'll tell them you had a heart attack as soon as you turned on fox news.
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u/Leashypooo Feb 04 '23
What information is on it that the family wouldn’t want anyone else to have?
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u/vaguenonetheless Feb 06 '23
You ever see that post where a family was given their grans titanium hip after death, they sold it at their garage site and some dude bought it for $35 and turned it into the gear shifter for his truck?
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u/OhPooForgottheBags Feb 04 '23
Not every death results in an autopsy. When is the pacemaker/no pacemaker question asked?
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u/MorningStrange1 Feb 04 '23
I work in a funeral home & crematorium--we ask every family of a decedent that comes to us. We also always check before cremation and will remove, if present. Pacemakers can potentially cause damage to the cremation chamber because they explode in the process. Also, the removed pacemakers can be recycled for the metals, just like other medical implants.
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u/OfficiallyEddy Feb 04 '23
What’s a pacemaker??
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u/Sam-Gunn Feb 05 '23
It's a small device that helps control heartbeat. Sometimes hearts don't beat like they should, and they require assistance to keep beating in rhythm. So they (the doctors) implant a pacemaker.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/pacemaker/about/pac-20384689
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u/Spamtonpamton Feb 04 '23
That is so cool!
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u/Hesher4Life Feb 04 '23
"Who's a good girl? Who's a goooood girrrrl."
Narrator: In the end, it was grandma
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u/Roundaboutsix Feb 04 '23
Back in the fifties and sixties dentists used a lot of gold and silver in dental reconstruction work. My mother used to tell me she had $10-12k worth of gold in her mouth. I used to get mad at her. “What are you telling me that for? It’s creepy!” She would just shrug. (I also asked my dentist if she cleaned the trap in her spit sink for precious metal scraps. She said no.). To this day, I’ve wondered what happens to the gold and silver in deceased folks’ mouths. Do undertakers remove it? Cremation techs? Does it just end up in the ashes as nondescript particulate?
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u/StillSundayDrunk Feb 04 '23
My thought re: the gold and silver is that it's only as valuable as the seller makes it out to be. It's just like gold-wrapped cabling or silver instruments for cleanliness - these materials seem to suddenly become a lot less valuable when they are not ring or necklace shaped :) (And that's a good thing overall!)
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u/Yourbubblestink Feb 04 '23
Good lord how much does open heart surgery cost for a dog?
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u/TheDogtorIsIn Feb 04 '23
A pacemaker isn’t placed via open heart surgery. Open chest, sometimes (epicardial) but most of them time it’s placed through the jugular vein into the heart chamber and the generator is tucked under the skin and muscle. The cost is about $6-10,000 including the surgeon and/or interventionalist/cardiologist depending on the institution.
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u/Yourbubblestink Feb 04 '23
$10k for a dog?
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u/TheDogtorIsIn Feb 05 '23
Up to $100k in humans and most of the time dogs are getting these placed when they are in heart failure already, so cost of hospitalization is high. The device itself is several thousand dollars. Might seem like a lot to spend on a pet but to each their own, no judgement, as we vets have to be “ok” with people spending $10k or sometimes $0 on their animals.
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u/Yourbubblestink Feb 05 '23
I didn’t realize that people invested that sort of money in their pets - must be a an ethical tight rope for vets to balance high cost procedure vs recommending closure
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u/TheDogtorIsIn Feb 05 '23
Everyday and every case has the potential to be an ethical dilemma. We balance the animal’s condition, degree of suffering, prognosis, owner’s emotional state, owner’s financial limitations, and our own training and opinions with every single case. It’s like being a pediatrician and your patient’s can’t talk but also the parents usually can’t afford to take care of them to the level they should or deserve. But not to equate human and animal life…what if the parents also sometimes told you it was cheaper to have another kid so you should kill this one. Or they decided to take their child home against medical advice and you knew it would suffer. Or they wanted to do everything for their child, but lacked the resources or ability to care for them. It’s a constant battle, and many vets develop depression and compassion fatigue simply because they can’t do what they were trained to do, and people project their own financial limitations on the vet’s compassion and duty. Financial assistance isn’t readily available for most people and not enough people have pet insurance. “If you cared about animals you would do this for free”.
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u/Yourbubblestink Feb 05 '23
I wish there was someway to have more education with people upfront, that their relationships with their pets are short term. The truth is that they’re often lucky to get 8 to 10 years from a dog.
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u/TheDogtorIsIn Feb 05 '23
I too wish people had more eduction. Some people don’t even know dogs get sick and need surgery or the cost of proper preventative care. We think we are entitled to “own” whatever we want but if something happens it shouldn’t be our problem and we should be able to escape accountability for the gravity of our decisions.
It’s not a secret dogs don’t live as long as humans. But modern medicine has dogs living well into their teens. My own dog lived until almost 17 with minimal intervention nothing heroic. The truth is, you have your opinion and when it comes to your pet, you can decide. You don’t need to assume you know everything for everyone, that’s a bit excessive. Don’t blame the lack of education on people’s decisions to make evidence based decisions about their pet’s health care. We do our job quite well in that department, it’s what we went to school for 12+ years to do.
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u/Yourbubblestink Feb 05 '23
I have yet to have the veterinarian include euthanasia as one of the options in a difficult situation. I’ve been startled each time that it’s been up to me to raise the question. Seems like the vet needs to be including that in the menu of options.
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u/Echo71Niner Interested Feb 04 '23
That is amazing, I have not a clue how this person can do that kind of job, but kudos to them.
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u/GarysCrispLettuce Feb 04 '23
I don't know why I would find it strange that an autopsy tech has a beard, but here we are....
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u/MountainFancy1352 Feb 05 '23
Flipping disgusting place, look at the floor. That scale with a basket in the back, that's where they weight the brains
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u/hhhvugc Feb 05 '23
i mean i dont expect that place to have floral print wallds
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u/MountainFancy1352 25d ago
Screw the walls, they could scrub the floor with bleach though, or hydrocloric acid mixed
with peroxide
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Feb 04 '23
[deleted]
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u/sitheandroid Feb 04 '23
It would have taken less time for you to Google it than type that. You'd also avoid looking like a tool.
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u/Bloodgrudge Feb 04 '23
I seen one of his videos where someone asked if an autopsy was painful and his answer was pretty great.
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u/Throwaway_acct3205 Feb 05 '23
I thought he was a chef and was confused why he was taking out pace makers
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u/Sam-Gunn Feb 05 '23
"Waiter? Why do all the names of types of meat in the menu have quotes around them?"
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u/Dineology Feb 05 '23
Just want take a moment to point out the subtle showmanship at the beginning of him acting like he was reading the text that’s on our screens.
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u/ooouroboros Feb 05 '23
That really is interesting, I would never in a million years guessed used pacemakers would be donated for dogs.
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u/titanictesticles Feb 05 '23
That actually made me happier then if he had of said they put it into another human …… hmmmm
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u/TheChiefIsHere Feb 05 '23
I thought this guy was gonna be making pizzas when I first opened the video… :(
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u/Yes-No-whatEVER Feb 05 '23
I'm crying as I write my response.
Our 14 year old dog has degenerative spine issues. Her back legs are quite weak and her front legs are starting to go. She cant crouch to poop, so she poops while walking or sometimes in the house. She still wants to play tug of war so we do it gently while she's lying down.
Even though we are retired now and don't need doggie daycare, she still wants to go out 3 times a week with her pack. So our sweet dog walker of 28 years (he was our daycare guy for our last dog) helps her into the truck, puts her in the front seat, and she gets to be at the park with everyone else. She's smiling when she comes back.
What will we do if she's completely paralyzed and can't stand anymore at all? Lifting her (60 pounds) several times a day to care for her, keeping her clean, etc.
I was an oncology RN. I've seen a lot of suffering and death. But I almost can't think about it, and I'm the medical authority in our house 🫀So I HAVE to think about the future. This topic is very painful, but it's important.
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u/obleckcomsmosgold4 Feb 05 '23
What happenes if family dosent want a autopsy but the person had a pace maker are you informed about it anyway before hand or do you ask them before anything happenes ?
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u/TopCheesecakeGirl Feb 05 '23
Why couldn’t they donate it to another human? Is it because a dog can’t pay for one but another human would have to?
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u/Electrical-Act-7170 Feb 05 '23
They don't just explode in the crematorium, they DESTROY it when they go BOOM!!!
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u/RonNona Feb 04 '23
Recycling at its best.