We all bite the dust and become one with the dust. Behind this simplification comes a remarkable process before our bodies turn to ashes. For someone, it might be gruesome, terrifying, traumatizing, while for others it might be as miraculous as the stages of conception and birth, only in a way that’s reversed—like a justification to the balance of nature. And so, we’re here to present both a discovery and knowledge about the loss of life and the process beyond.
When Death Finally Comes
Our heart stops beating while the lungs stop breathing, and each cell no longer receives oxygen and nutrients from blood. When this happens, the process called livor mortis takes place. It’s the settling of the blood in the lower or dependent part of the body like the back or the legs, depending on the position at death. This is due to the blood draining from the blood vessels starting at the top and accumulating in the lower part.
But most cells aren’t still dead except for the brain cells which die in the first few minutes of death. Cells of the muscle, skin, and bone can live for hours and several days especially the latter two. This is because these cells can use a different type of respiration after the heart and lungs stop working. This is called anaerobic respiration or respiration without oxygen, which can cause lactic acid build up, the reason for the muscles to stiffen. It’s very much the same when we run a long distance and our heart and lungs can’t keep up with our leg muscles. But the different lies on the fact that death can’t clear out this lactic acid because of lack of blood flow, hence causing the whole body to stiffen—or what we know medically as rigor mortis.
Rigor mortis starts at about three hours after death and lasts approximately in 36 hours. When all cells die, it can’t support to fight bacteria and the enzyme of these bacteria plus the cells own enzyme what cause the body to decompose causing the muscles to lose their stiffness.
The process that takes place after death depends on the embalming procedure that we usually do now to somebody that died. Embalming affects the length of time before the body finally cedes to the different stages of decomposition. On the next part of the discussion, we will tackle the more detailed story of how our bodies decompose, which is divided into five stages: Initial Decay, Putrefaction, Black Putrefaction, Butyric Putrefaction, and Dry Decay.
