Post Mortem Movement

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Has anyone here ever seen a person who had ceased to breath continue to move. I ask because there was a lady who did just that in the ED where I work about a month ago. No heart beat, not breathing, nothing, but her feet and legs as well as her fingers continued to move around gently for about 20 minutes. It was so strange that we had to make the family wait to view the body.

I know that she was given a lot of different meds while we were trying to resuscitate her, do you think that is what caused it?

I met an older lady who was a student at my university about a year ago. She told me she has a habit of dying at the drop of a hat. She has been pronounced several times and has even awakened in the morgue!!! Her sister always rushes to whatever hospital she is taken to in order to argue with the docs and keep them from sending her to the morgue too soon.

As a matter of fact, I haven't seen her since...wonder if something happened to her sis???

Specializes in Brain injury,vent,peds ,geriatrics,home.

How creepy!! It almost sounds like you need to go to the NUrSE GHOST STORIES THREAD to post this !

but her feet and legs as well as her fingers continued to move around gently for about 20 minutes.

We were taught bodies can vibrate and twitch after death.

But it's quite different from moving gently around.

I've been thinking about this and my guess would be spinal cord initiated motor function. I stress it's only a guess though and a wild one at that.

Levin

Specializes in Emergency.
I met an older lady who was a student at my university about a year ago. She told me she has a habit of dying at the drop of a hat. She has been pronounced several times and has even awakened in the morgue!!! Her sister always rushes to whatever hospital she is taken to in order to argue with the docs and keep them from sending her to the morgue too soon.

As a matter of fact, I haven't seen her since...wonder if something happened to her sis???

I saw a TV show about this a few months ago. They featured a lady in the UK, who had some type of disease that made people think she was dead. She said she woke up several times in the morgue.

CREEPY!

I was looking for that story and found this one...creepy!:uhoh21:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=24&art_id=iol1116249016167A551

I saw a TV show about this a few months ago. They featured a lady in the UK, who had some type of disease that made people think she was dead. She said she woke up several times in the morgue.

CREEPY!

I saw this too. Really cool

Specializes in orthopaedics.
The first time I saw it I almost lost it. I've seen it many times since, and it doesn't phase me anymore. There is still electrical activity in the body even after the heart and lungs cease to work, and that's what you see. It can be so mild that all I could see was muscle fibers twitching after we opened a chest and lost the pt anyway. It can be severe enough that the top or bottom half of the body can literally come up from the gurney. Haven't seen that one myself but I've heard others talking about it. Scared the crap out of them.

:yeahthat:

@Shadelyn It's not a unique sight, it's someone slightly moving, give me a break. And did you really have to see it to believe it? I didn't. You couldn't understand how bodies can move/make sounds after death? Seems a little dopey.

Haven't seen that (yay).

Have had a person in a body bag start to breath... coded him again and he lived? for another 2 days.

Specializes in Med/Surg, Academics.
@Shadelyn It's not a unique sight, it's someone slightly moving, give me a break. And did you really have to see it to believe it? I didn't. You couldn't understand how bodies can move/make sounds after death? Seems a little dopey.

What's dopey is reviving a very old thread to be condescending to a poster who hasn't posted in five years.

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