Two high volume traveling trade embalmer's give us an overview of what is important to carry from funeral home to funeral home when embalming. Matt Smith and Chris Keyes
Awww you remembered me! Yeah I had no idea I could change it! Lol 8 years and I thought it couldn’t be changed. I kinda wanna go back. Creature of habit 😂 I had my fun.
I just started watching your videos Kari and I always wanted to do the kind of work you do. I got a question Do you ever get emotional when you do a nice case and it is a toddler that you have to work on or anything dealing with children?
Great video. He’s right. In the south, most of the embalmers own the funeral home. It would be rare in my experience to have an “embalmer” to not own the funeral home..
Great video! I love Matt Smith. You are so lucky to know him. His podcasts are wonderful. As a recovering heroin addict, the podcast dealing with the opiate crisis brought me to tears. We should start a campaign to have Mr. Smith have Kari as his next podcast guest. That would be an episode I would be very excited for.
The baby lotion made me smile! I went to a viewing for a 2 month old and the overwhelming smell of chemicals was astonishing! Even my husband noticed it. She was in the hospital for her entire life so no decomp.
I love that the last gentleman saves the webril tubes. I'm gonna suggest that in lab next semester when we learn how to embalm autopsy cases. Thank you Kari!
I'm glad I found these videos. My daughter (a high school senior) wants to study mortuary science. I actually mentioned to her she could contract herself out as an embalmer only if she chooses.
Great information Kari I've done trade embalming even though I worked for my family's establishment I definitely took my own tools because some funeral homes and mortuaries are not fully equipped with some of our own concoctions, and standard equipment. I always have trocars, syringes, hypodermic needles, scapuls, aspirators, and all other items that I preferred to use to guarantee a positive outcome. Keep up the good work!
Most people don't know that my state, California, is the third largest state. This means we have huge rural regions that some mortuaries cover. We are mostly not a municipal state. In my work as a mortician, there were times when we had no local pathologist for autopsies. So, similar to these very mobile embalmers, we had mobile pathologists. Many is the time we had to arrange to meet these fellows wherever they were going. Often hours away. So we have used prep rooms in many mortuaries, some quite distant. Otherwise, our autopsies were frequently done at the facility of a neighboring county, the nearest one being about 90 miles away. It was good work. It just seemed odd to be in the death care industry, yet for weeks I lived pretty much on the road.
This was fascinating to me. I didn't realize that embalmers aren't necessarily funeral home employed! I always thought embalmers were a funeral home staff. Have you ever done a home embalming, or is it legal? I have much to discover! Thanks for broadening my knowledge and enriching my thoughts. 👍🏻
Great video, Kari! I'm curious about the wax used in times of reconstruction of the face. Is there a way you could demonstrate what it does to rebuild?
Here in the San Francisco Area, most homes have the embalmer on staff. The embalmer is somewhat like a physician in "reverse"...heal the body from "falling apart" in death.
Great video. How do u all sterilize all the instruments. Do u use a machine.? If so, do the funeral homes have them?? Thank u for showing me the importance of embalming in certain situations. But we are running out of real estate to bury people. But natural burial has a lot more places right now. I’m so conflicted. Chris is such a caring man. All of u are the amazing good guys in the industry. Thank u.
Hi Kari! A couple of things. First, please don’t forget to do a 2 minute video on purging 😊 Second, I know this is weird but sometime in the future would you consider showing us the embalming process on a life size dummy? Lastly, can you please talk about the rigidity in the skin when embalming and why does that happen? Thanks so much!! I really love all of this information you share with us.
Kari, I stumbled upon one of your vids last weekend, & to my surprise after watching it, I subbed! When I was in 5th grade, each student had to choose a career and then go spend a day with that practitioner to see what the "day to day" business was all about. I chose to be a "Mortician" (the term we used back in 1968!). Unfortunately, we were not able to get the "Mortuary" in the area to have me over for a day, so I ended up choosing another career path (both then & later in life). Thank you so much for providing an avenue for me to begin exploring the career that I missed!
Kari Northey , I pursued Architecture and ended up focusing on historic preservation and adaptive reuse of old buildings. My real passion however, was the design of Christian Houses of worship. I now create Christian iconography for Greek, Russian, & Ethiopian Orthodox Churches. As a interesting side note, traditional Orthodox Churches don't allow embalming of the faithful departed, so usually the same "faithful" get buried pretty quick!!!
" I've burned over 17,000 bodies"...eek! Hey, someone has to do it! I did my grandmother's makeup for her funeral. It actually helped me. I've always wanted to help with that part of the job. The makeup, dressing, I wouldn't mind making videos for the fam. There's lots of things that wouldn't bother me, BUT the cremation part is sort of eerie to me. I don't think the embalming would bother me as much. Just something about the burning, doesn't set well with me. However, my grandmother was embalmed after a viewing. It was her wishes, her ashes along with my grandfather's are in the Atlantic Ocean.
So in Michigan, all the funeral homes hire a traveling embalmer? I come from small towns in west Michigan and I always thought our funeral home owners did the embalming. A couple of funeral homes my family has used for years, the owners with to mortuary school, so I assumed they also did the embalming.
For the average person that doesn’t experience death every day, I’m so shocked that you guys have so many bodies to tend to a day. I always thought it’d be like a few bodies a month lol.
+Kari Northey Wow, I learned so much! First, I never even knew that someone other than the funeral home did this work. What is the pay like? Do you get paid per job? Or does a funeral home give them a salary? I would hope a job this important woud make 6 figures. I was so fascinated to see what they carry and what's in their bag. Thanks so much for educating me
@ Kari Northey, wow I didn't think you were going to see my question and I looked through all the comments first to make sure no one else responded and you answered them lol, thanks! I really learned a lot from this one. But you know how us Wolverines do, we are always thirsty to learn ;) Go Blue!
baby lotion 😮. After a baby is embalmed, and the parents want to hold the baby, will they feel a significant weight change or will their child feel like normal weight?
I've heard they cut the clothes up the back when they are dressing the deceased but their clothes look normal when they are being viewed..do they stitch them back on?? What's with the shoeless feet??
@@KaritheMorticianIn my neck of the woods in Pa., a lot of caskets are full open. Shoes are needed. Also, the family blankets the loved one before the casket is closed, a gesture of love and goodbye.
@@josephkrizauskas1052 That's a good gesture of having a blanket around the loved one. Native Americans do that also and bury them in new moccasins to travel to the spirit world.
do the embalmers ever meet with the family ? the trade embalmer is an agent of the funeral home -- have you ever heard of a family want someone they select ? Did i misunderstand ... some high volume trade embalmers have their own facility ? So is the person brought there embalmed casket-ed and dressed ... or are they only tehre for embalming and nothing else ?
@@KaritheMortician My goodness Kari - its christmas eve and here you are answering questions ! Talk about dedication .... Thank you so much. I hope you have had the time to get all your shopping done and wrapped. My two grandsons no longer have the desire to know what will Santa bring, Now its hey Pappy I would like .........(they love video games ) so this has been great as a gift card works well and they can pick thier own. No wrapping, no wondering if its the right kind ect ect They seem happy and I no longer have to deal with the crowds and clowns at walmart lol I truly wish you and your family a wonderful holiday . Marc ps i am still working on that list of questions....maybe i will have Santa deliver it after the holiday. take care and thank you for your knowledge and sharing your passion and love of your profession. PS how do I get to hear his pod cast ?
Kari, i just want to make sure i understand correctly.. In Michigan you guys are "guns for hire" and funeral homes dont have their own in-house embalmers? Is this correct?
@@KaritheMortician thats very interesting, ive never heard of that. But it does make sense. When you have your smaller, family-owned funeral homes w/ little to no staff compared to the large, corporate-owned homes that have an army of embalmers at their disposal. I have a few friends in the industry, all female, btw, that are "mom and pop" based as they all left sci years ago. Side Note: i never realized just how many females were in the trade. Not that its a bad thing, they just have more compassion than i do, i guess. And arent creeped out as i am :)
They have baby Cologne johnson and johnson makes it its at cvs or walmart under $5 and looks like baby oil but isnt..i know it sounds morbid to say about a baby.. but it smells like a baby anytime i have a friend that uses it it reminds me of when my 13 yr old was little