
Pacemaker explosions in crematoria - cant_kant
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1279940/
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camperman
Iain Banks uses this as a hilarious opening line to The Crow Road:

"It was the day my grandmother exploded."

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ryandamm
Favorite factoid: one (discontinued) power source for pacemakers is evidently
Pu-238.

[http://osrp.lanl.gov/pacemakers.shtml](http://osrp.lanl.gov/pacemakers.shtml)

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gpvos
It is also mentioned in the featured article.

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zeveb
I really think that if folks had a better understanding of what happens in
cremation, embalmed entombment and unembalmed burial that we would see a
massive societal shift towards unembalmed burial.

Cremation, in particular, is a nasty bit of business. Those 'ashes' aren't
actually ashes: they're bone meal.

The morticians I know would never be cremated, nor wish their loved ones to be
(I don't know all the morticians in the world, of course: no doubt there are
many who would be fine with it).

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Mithaldu
So what happens exactly that bothers you? After burning whatever remains is
put through a grinder? If it is that, why does it bother you?

Or are you saying people are given fake remains? If so: {{citation}}

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zeveb
> So what happens exactly that bothers you?

The corpse is roasted, the fat melting (a fire hazard with extremely fat
people), the charred and finally most of the organic compounds evaporate,
leaving behind the skeleton, medical devices and any other such detritus (e.g.
shrapnel). The furnace is then opened and the bones are raked out; an
attendant removes anything which could damage the grinder and grinds the bones
into meal (it's great for roses!).

> If it is that, why does it bother you?

Grinding a human being into dust doesn't bother you?

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Mithaldu
> > If it is that, why does it bother you?

> Grinding a human being into dust doesn't bother you?

For one, that is not an answer. For the other, no it doesn't. The brain is
shut down. All that's left is cells which individually may still have some
life, but are bound to die quickly anyhow. And particularly after being burned
they're all guaranteed to be dead, so the grinding does not harm any living
being anymore.

Does the grinding bother you more than the burning?

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ucaetano
Easy (but VERY controversial) solution: people with pacemakers must have a
tattoo in the wrist or somewhere else.

On a separate note, maybe we should all have a tattoo with some basic info:
name (optional), blood type, chronic diseases (diabetes for example),
medication allergies, pacemakers, etc.

Kinda like the SS tattoos, but without the SS part, naturally.

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lawpoop
Or use a metal detector first?

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ucaetano
Again, pretty expensive to equip every single crematorium around the world
with metal detectors.

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Zigurd
The lowest price I saw on Amazon was $18.

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thesehands
I'm aware of a scheme in the UK where Doctors got paid for signing the forms
post death certifying a pacemaker is not present in the body. At the end of
the week these doctors could collect their not insignificant (roughy £100 a
body) 'ash cash'.

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gpvos
What would be the point of this? (Also, do you have a source?)

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lmm
Well presumably a doctor is trusted to have access to medical records in a way
that a crematorium isn't - or has the training to perform a physical
examination if they don't have those records.

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gpvos
Okay. I got the impression that something illegitimate was going on.

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apricot
I'm just a little bit disappointed that the references section does not cite
the French singer Charles Trenet:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0KWyWwVp0E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0KWyWwVp0E)

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basicplus2
have xray machines installed at all crematoria... along with good quality
kitchen knife.

