And there's also "Fred...I think we've got an eater."

They could just do it in batches. It's not like anyone would be able to tell afterwards.

How the fark does someone get to 500 pounds? And how the hell can anybody burn such a gargantuan body without a 55-gallon drum of gasoline and a flamethrower?

I have a business idea. Big and Tall crematoriums.

Should have cut off the feet to make it fit.

ya'll urbanites don't know nothing about nothing, does ya?

haul it out back and throw a tire on top. it'll burn down when its all over and done with

rebelyell2006: How the fark does someone get to 500 pounds? And how the hell can anybody burn such a gargantuan body without a 55-gallon drum of gasoline and a flamethrower?

Human fat is surprisingly flammable at high enough temperatures. And I suppose it was 500 pounds of muscle.
As for how the get that big or can stand to live like that, I have no idea. It is a self feeding cycle I guess.

Also...




There was.... another option.

Skr And I suppose it wasn't 500 pounds of muscle.

oops fixed that fer me.

rebelyell2006: How the fark does someone get to 500 pounds? And how the hell can anybody burn such a gargantuan body without a 55-gallon drum of gasoline and a flamethrower?

It's from New Zealand. They don't mention the ethnicity of the gent, but NZ has a very large population of Pacific Islanders. To quote Pulp Fiction, "I wouldn't go so far as to call the brother fat, I mean he got a weight problem. What's the n****r gonna do? He's Samoan."

*Sniff*

Somebody having a barbeque?

I used to work in a funeral home watching the phone after hours. If the police called, my whole job was to page the mortician on duty to go out to make the pickup. Because our facility had the only crematorium in the area, we would contract out to other outfits so bodies would occasionally show up after hours. As a result, I was trained to run the cremators.

Oh the stories I can tell because of that job. Coolest job I've ever had (and that I am likely to ever have).

The point being, having not read the article, is that we wouldn't cremate someone unless we had no doubts there wouldn't be a problem. You don't screw around in this business because people are involved. That said, those retorts burn at 1650F, and at that temperature even bone burns. Occasionally some body fat will pool around the bone box (having oozed down through the channel) but I've burned a 300 pound woman and she came out looking exactly like everyone else does. Yes, I cracked the retort late in the burn to sneak a peek. No, I saw nothing unusual. Just lots and lots of fire.

Someone that we might have difficulty loading into the retort? Sorry. I'm calling the Director. This guy might not get burned.


/I know, CSB.
//AMA

frak21: The point being, having not read the article, is that we wouldn't cremate someone unless we had no doubts there wouldn't be a problem. You don't screw around in this business because people are involved. That said, those retorts burn at 1650F, and at that temperature even bone burns. Occasionally some body fat will pool around the bone box (having oozed down through the channel) but I've burned a 300 pound woman and she came out looking exactly like everyone else does. Yes, I cracked the retort late in the burn to sneak a peek. No, I saw nothing unusual. Just lots and lots of fire.

Genuinely CSB. But the article is talking about a 500-pound person, and I'd wager that the only crematoria really built for that scale are the ones intended for zoos.

frak21: CSB



Why'd you get fired?

PainInTheASP: *Sniff*

Somebody having a barbeque?

"I smell doritoes mixed with mcdonalds"

Also, how do you like your steak?

What about artisan candle making?

As a fatass, i've already prepared an apology letter for the crematorium, for the massive grease fire my body will produce when i go for that final burn.

i'm gonna burn like a road flare when the time comes...sorry!

KickahaOta: frak21: The point being, having not read the article, is that we wouldn't cremate someone unless we had no doubts there wouldn't be a problem. You don't screw around in this business because people are involved. That said, those retorts burn at 1650F, and at that temperature even bone burns. Occasionally some body fat will pool around the bone box (having oozed down through the channel) but I've burned a 300 pound woman and she came out looking exactly like everyone else does. Yes, I cracked the retort late in the burn to sneak a peek. No, I saw nothing unusual. Just lots and lots of fire.

Genuinely CSB. But the article is talking about a 500-pound person, and I'd wager that the only crematoria really built for that scale are the ones intended for zoos.


Actually, the retorts are roomy enough for a 500 pounder. They are a good 4 feet (or so) across and plenty tall enough. Having gone back and read the article, it sounds more like an equipment failure to me.

There is another burn stage post-retort to complete the burning process. There cannot be any particulate emissions from your stack (for obvious reasons). It sounds like that burner may not have been working or may have been overwhelmed. There are as many kinds of cremators as there are pizza ovens, and they all have different characteristics. I'm guessing their unit was malfunctioning or was simply not up to the task. The guy doing the burn should have known this. Had it been in the US he would very likely have gotten the facility shut down (had it not been a malfunction).

Arcane_Lurker: frak21: CSB



Why'd you get fired?


Took me a second to get that....

Cremator machines can handle up to around 600 pounds or so. Also, there is a specific procedure for cremating large bodies, seeing as these folks had only been open for four months they may not have been aware. I have been in the business for 27 years, 626 lbs. Was the largest I have ever dealt with. There is now newer equipment on the market made to deal with "Fatter America" just as mortuary cots are made bigger, hospital beds are bigger and ambulances are bigger. Fast food, ice-cold beer, TV and the internet has made us one of the fattest countries on the planet. In fact we are the only country with very fat poor people.


------------------------------------- -------------------------------- - ----------

I used to work next door to the place where they burned up the biohazard waste from the hospitals. It was a very.........distinctive odor.

They're going to need a big piano.

you know who else tried to burn corpses?

rebelyell2006: How the fark does someone get to 500 pounds? And how the hell can anybody burn such a gargantuan body without a 55-gallon drum of gasoline and a flamethrower?

Father-in-law of a friend of mine was about that big. I suspect that just stuffed him the flames. Crackle crackle crackle, which is a bit of a shock if they're not quite dead.

You know who never got any complaints about the smoke from the crematorium?

Gulper Eel: And there's also "Fred...I think we've got an eater."

I went to a funeral director convention once. Incidentally, it only takes a few hours to stop feeling weird being surrounded by death products for someone who doesn't work in the field. Something that really stuck with me for some reason was when a guy who owns a crematorium told me that he could fit a 300 lb man into a coffee can.

/cue big lebowski jpg

Biodiesel FTW.

frak21: As a result, I was trained to run the cremators.

Oh the stories I can tell because of that job. Coolest job I've ever had (and that I am likely to ever have).

Go on, tell them about having to run the cremains through a grinder afterward.

PainInTheASP: *Sniff*

Somebody having a barbeque?

LOL. Seems like you never smelt a body burn.

The smell of the burning hair overwhelms everything else. Basically a burning body smells like burning hair.

/ and looks like bubbling fat.

MrDon: Fast food, ice-cold beer, TV and the internet has made us one of the fattest countries on the planet. In fact we are the only country with very fat poor people.

Not true. Lots of countries have poor who lose food choices and have to eat refined and processed foods and get fat. The rich can afford quality food.

It was 30-40 years ago that refined western foods has just got to other countries that the rich were fat and the poor thin. The opposite is true almost everywhere now (barring North Korea).

Nearby business owner Rod Stuart says the black smoke from the Sydenham Crematorium caused an unpleasant stench on Wednesday.

That's funny, I would have thought he wouldn't want to talk about it....

PainInTheASP: *Sniff*

Somebody having a barbeque?



Barrrrbeeeeque!!!!!

I saw a book once that had 'death clothes'* in it, shoes that zipped up the back, suits with velcro fastenings, different makeup to hide strange colors...was weird but very interesting. They were surprisingly expensive to buy.

* the clothes they put on dead bodies for viewings

Chariset: frak21: As a result, I was trained to run the cremators.

Oh the stories I can tell because of that job. Coolest job I've ever had (and that I am likely to ever have).

Go on, tell them about having to run the cremains through a grinder afterward.


And running a magnet through the cremains to remove things like pacemaker fragments, hip implants (a surprising number of those), and screws from the coffins...

You just use a long handled broom to sweep everything forward in the retort down a channel to the bone box. Remove the box, go through the stuff with the magnet, pick out the metal, and load what's left into an oversized cuisinart. Grind for a few minutes until a medium fine powder, bag and tag, and it's on the shelf until they are claimed by the family.

The really sad part are the cremains that have been on the shelf for several months... unclaimed and presumably unloved. That was one of the things that actually bothered me.

ktybear: I saw a book once that had 'death clothes'* in it, shoes that zipped up the back, suits with velcro fastenings, different makeup to hide strange colors...was weird but very interesting. They were surprisingly expensive to buy.

* the clothes they put on dead bodies for viewings

Death Clothes for Junior would be a wicked awesome band name.

mr0x: LOL. Seems like you never smelt a body burn.

Call it "willfully ignorant".

rebelyell2006: How the fark does someone get to 500 pounds? And how the hell can anybody burn such a gargantuan body without a 55-gallon drum of gasoline and a flamethrower?

Chop it into smaller pieces?

Hold on there, Professor

We fixed the glitch

frak21: The really sad part are the cremains that have been on the shelf for several months... unclaimed and presumably unloved. That was one of the things that actually bothered me.

We lost someone like that. Both of us kids thought we had picked up the ashes and done 'something' with them. No big deal, just accepted that it was done. Fast forward a couple of years and we get to talking. "What did you do with the ashes?" "Huh, I thought you did something?" We go back to the crematorium, talk to a guy behind the counter, follow him down a narrow corridor to the very end the room. Up on top of the top shelf was a box. He picked it up, blew the dust off and said "Yep, this is it". Never laughed so hard as when we got back in the car and thought about what had just happened. She would have appreciated the moment.

Johnny Tarr?

CSB time
Way back when dinosaurs roamed and I was in college, I worked in a hospital as a psych aide. One evening I was asked to help out on another floor. Some guy had just died, and his corpse weighed somewhere around 800 pounds. He wouldn't fit in the morgue, so we had to pack him in ice while we tried to find some place that could take him. No funeral homes could help out, but the PA Cremation Society said "if he measures under these dimensions, we'll take him." We measured, and he was an inch and a half over. I said "give me a knife, I'll make him fit." I was joking, but I got a look that said they were considering it.

Instead, we just lied and said he was half an inch under.

/Packing him in ice meant exposing areas of his body that clearly hadn't seen oxygen in quite some time. It was quite the smell.
//Went and ordered Chinese afterwards. It was hungry work!

frak21: The really sad part are the cremains that have been on the shelf for several months... unclaimed and presumably unloved.

Not necessarily. My dad's ashes have been at the funeral home for almost eight years, because that's the safest place for them. Mom would lose the ashes if she brought them home. She wants the ashes commingled and dumped in a low spot on my lawn to maybe help the drainage a little.

Skr: rebelyell2006: How the fark does someone get to 500 pounds? And how the hell can anybody burn such a gargantuan body without a 55-gallon drum of gasoline and a flamethrower?

Human fat is surprisingly flammable at high enough temperatures. And I suppose it was 500 pounds of muscle.
As for how the get that big or can stand to live like that, I have no idea. It is a self feeding cycle I guess.

Also...


[ncowie.files.wordpress.com image 480x360]

There was.... another option.

Applause.gif

A "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" reference? How oddly appropriate.

LeroyBourne: I have a business idea. Big and Tall crematoriums.

Talk about a growth opportunity. Perhaps "Pyres R U.S."?

This is one of the most fascinating and morbid threads ever. Please continue with the freaky anecdotes all you ex-cremators!

I'm happy to read the responses from people about cremains left at the funeral home. What always bothered me about that was that I thought those poor people had no one to claim them. Homeless dead people, so to speak. Lost souls.

It's good to know that at least some of those folks had people and were just in storage for a time. It was the people aspect of the job that got to me rather than the morbid technical side.

One night, I had a suicide come in tagged for direct cremation. The guy who bought him in asked if I "wanted to see something" and opened the body bag. It was a white guy about my age. He looked a few months homeless and had hanged himself. He still wore the noose and although I wanted to remove it, touching bodies is no no number one. So I burned him. Me and the guy who brought him in were the only people there. I said a prayer (I'm not religious) and asked God that whatever this guy did in life, could he please be cut a break? I loaded him up and started the sequence, and his face stays with me to this day.

Thomas Freeman. I swore I would never forget his name. It took three months to find someone to pick him up. His family apparently didn't know what happened and weren't even looking for him.

Freeze-dry the bodies first. I've been saying this for years. Sure, it would slow things down, but the savings on gas alone would be worth it.

Plus, offer to let people take their freeze-dried loved ones home instead. They'd keep for decades with minimal maintenance. You can't ask for a better keepsake. I'd offer various poses, such as Heirloom Rocking Chair. Maybe with motion-detect automatic rocking action.

frak21:

Thanks for sharing. I've found this entire thread, but particularly your posts, fascinating. Both the technical and personal aspects are wild