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Kristi's Crypt

• The Ghost Whisperer - Morgue Mistakes in the Zombie Episode!

   ©2007  Word Count: 1,050

  
  The Ghost Whisperer Series
   The Morgue Mistakes from The Walk-In (Zombie) episode
  
  Characters:
  Melinda Gordon (Jennifer Love Hewitt), Jim Clancy (David Conrad), Harold the Mortician (Curtis Armstrong)
  
  This episode opens with Jim sliding a gurney with a zipped black body bag, possible homicide, into the back of an ambulance. Jim is not wearing gloves. This is a mistake as he not only has touched the body bag, gurney, and the inside door handles of the ambulance as he shut them closed. He then proceeds to shut off his bluetooth wireless headset with that same hand that just touched all of those infectious surfaces. Whatever bacteria and germs were on those items, are now not only on his hands, but also his earpiece for his phone. I am going to assume he drove without disinfecting those same hands, so the steering wheel and all of the dashboard items have those germs, too.
  
  Next stop: The Morgue
  Through the door comes Jim, pushing the gurney with the deceased in the zipped body bag. Jim IS wearing gloves, as he should be! Morgues are full of icky invisible agents, just waiting to give you a terrible disease. Harold, the mortician, is always wearing gloves.
  
  Harold says "Long time, no see!"
  
  Jim replies "What's happening, Harold"
  
  Harold states dryly "The usual party, just don't ask what we use for pinatas."
  
  This is a nice touch of realism, as gallows humor runs rampant in 'the pit.' I liked this!
  
  Harold proceees to assist Jim in moving the deceased to the table. They are both wearing gloves. They unzip the bag and tuck it under the deceased. Jim stands at the head end and slips his hands under the shoulders. Harold stands at the feet and grasps the calves of the deceased. They lift on a count of three, take a whole bunch of sideways steps and lower the body onto the silver metal embalming table with the headblock.
  
  What was wrong: They moved this body incorrectly. There should have been a sheet under the deceased in the body bag. The gurney should have been lined up as close as possible to the morgue table. The two men should have stood side by side on the opposite side of the morgue table. The next step would have been for Jim to have the sheet ends around the shoulder area of the deceased and Harold to have the sheet tightly around the leg end of the deceased. They could have then easily and smoothly just slid the body from the gurney to table with minimal risk of back injury. In a perfect situation, there would have been a winch with body straps on the ceiling, so no human strength would be necessary to move the body.
  
  and my nitpicking continues....
  
  Body is now on the morgue table. It is paperwork time. Gloves are still on the hands of both men. Jim takes a pen from his shirtpocket and hands it to Harold, along with the clipboard for paperwork and signature of body receipt. Off comes Jim's gloves. Correctly grasping the wrist of the glove and tugging downward to remove the left glove. Now comes the ooops: the right glove is removed incorrectly. Jim takes the ungloved left hand, touches the fingers of the gloved right hand and then hesitates and moves that hand to the wrist and then pulls the glove off. There as a bit of obvious fumbling here with the gloves. His clean hand has now been in contact with the dirty germy glove. To further annoy me, Jim has now put those gloves in his jacket pocket for some reason. Why??
  
  The correct way to remove a pair of these gloves is to pull the glove off by the lefthand wrist, keeping the dirty inside-out left glove in the your fist of your right hand. This way you can take your clean left hand to your right wrist and pull the second dirty glove off, making it go inside-out, like a little pouch, before tossing it into the infectious waste bin. Back to Harold with pen and clipboard. Harold walks to his desk and places the clipboard upon this surface, while writing. Jim has his gloves off and is now scratching his right cheek, after tugging his clean hand out of his pocket in which he just shoved is icky germy gloves. And now Jim's hands are in both of his pants pockets, making sure that whatever is in those pockets will also be covered with germs and bacteria. Money, pager, gum, or ambulance keys?
  
  Now Harold hands Jim the germy clipboard and pen, which Jim takes with his ungloved hand. Harold is still wearing his gloves, as he should be. Jim now folds the black body bag a few times with his free hand, while holding the clipboard. I missed where the pen went, but can assume, back into his shirt pocket. Body bag get tucked into a nice bundle with the clipboard placed on top and wheeled out to the ambulance on the dirty gurney. Even better, Jim headsbutts his way out of the morgue, which has those wide strips of plastic sheets as a door. How many other nasty things have also brushed against those plastic strips?
  
  Ah, the bedroom scene as Jim returns to his lovely wife, Melinda. Jim is unbuttoning his shirt, while walking into the bedroom. Kisses his wife who walks to meet him. Her nightgown has now come into contact with the icky shirt pocket holding the germy pen. Even if Jim had used Purell or washed his hands, his pants, wristwatch, and shirt have morgue stuff on them. Did he remove his shoes? We will never know. Perhaps he is tracking all that into his bedroom and home, too. Jim's shirt is tossed and he is getting into bed in his undershirt. He then proceeds to remove his wristwatch and place it on the nightstand. Jim's really tired. NO shower? His left cheek is on the pillow, so we hope that Melinda will give her husband a sweet goodnight kiss .. on his right cheek, which he scratched in the morgue.
  
  This only proves that I have too much OSHA training to enjoy a good death scene. You can take the girl out of the morgue, but you can't take the morgue out of the girl!!
  
~The End~



• Author Bio: Licensed Funeral Director
  
  
  Kristi’s e-mail is

  kristi@kristicrypt.com.