InvasiveThoughts.com

Christy Tuzzio, dedicated mother of three and cheerful bartender at Club Cohiba (a cigar bar in the basement of the Havana hotel on the river walk in downtown San Antonio ), has a dark side: she prefers to work with dead people. I picked up this news during general conversation while sitting at the bar one slow night at Cohiba. She was talking about being a student at UTSA when she revealed that she's studying to become a forensics scientist. Me, I can't say I'm very comfortable with dead bodies, humans or animals. And naturally I was curious about a woman who LIKES getting into dead bodies. It's not an occupation that's readily discussed and I've only ever met one other person in the field. So Nicole and I went back to Cohiba to interview Christy over glasses of red wine, to talk about death and how one makes a happy career from it. The conversation was fluid and Christy had a lot to say but Nicole and I were able to capture the most interesting aspects of our discussion. The questions below aren't worded exactly as they were during our interview, and parts of Christy's responses below are truncated or paraphrased. But imagine yourself sitting with us in the dark candlelit basement on a slow Tuesday night, talking about death…

IT: How do you feel about death and working with the dead?

Christy: It all fascinates me. The thing that I've learned from this is that someone who is deceased can tell a lot about their life. Every little cut tells something. The condition of their body tells if they took care of themselves. Every body tells a story. You can tell what operations they've had. You get a lot of patient history just by looking at a body.

My brother passed away when I was 30. He had been shot in a drive-by (in SA), or a "drug by" as I say. 2 1/2 weeks before his 21 ^st birthday; wrong place, wrong time. He was a quadriplegic for four years before he died; his body just shut down. I learned a lot about medicinal things. He died in my parents' home. ….He was 25 years …my mother found him….she was so scared that she would be blamed….I talked to the coroner's office about a ruling of death and they made a ruling of death by homicide because of the bullet causing paralysis and ultimately organ failure. So my mom needing to know the answers made me think about other people that maybe need that sense of closure.

IT: When did you first come to be intrigued by death?

12, 13 years old. I wanted to be one of two things: I wanted to be either a stewardess or an open-heart surgeon. I wanted to help people but I realized I have an aversion to blood; it makes me ill. Blood in autopsies is different. It's not gushing and pumping.

At 23 I saw my first autopsy. I called the coroner's office (it was a little more relaxed then, not as much security) and I expressed that I was a student and interested in the moratoria field. I got a recommendation from a professor…

I think it's interesting the amount of research that can be done by looking at bodies. There are a lot of good things that can come out of death. Organ donation; someone can see who couldn't before, a liver for a child who would otherwise die. Death is sad but it's a part of life.

IT: Tell us about mortuary science as a career.

There are different aspects to mortuary science. You can work in a mortuary where you prepare a body for cremation or burial. At a lot of mortuary homes, you don't have to have a degree. You do get licensed; the funeral home will normally take care of that stuff. If you want to specialize in the forensics side, you have to get under somebody's wing and learn. There's not a school that will teach you everything about forensics. There are different areas you can specialize in: weapons, nature, fabrics. The one that's more interesting to me is fabrics. Blood can determine if there's stray DNA. You can separate it from the victim's DNA. Is the fabric unique, distinctive, a certain brand of shoe, weave? This can exclude or include someone in your file.

IT: Is there a need for forensics scientists here in SA?

A lot of forensic scientists become what you would consider legal witnesses. A lot of them are for hire, to be called upon for defense or to give an opinion in a case. There are obvious jobs you can find but a lot of them are instituted through the police department. You'd have to go to the basic and serve your time on patrol…. pay your dues just like everything else….It could take a while. There are private investigation firms that use their own forensic scientists. I could not handle SAPD.

I think as long as people die and there are murders and accidents, there will always be a job open. It's not one of those things that can be replaced by a computer. A computer can't really think and look at evidence. It can take data and make it statistical and show theories, but it will never replace a person in the field.

IT: How does this field affect your attitude toward death?

I've always had the same outlook; if it's gonna happen it's gonna happen. I can take steps to try to prevent it, precautionary.

IT: You're not afraid of death?

No. not at all…If it's going to happen it's going to happen. My fear above anything else is, "Are my kids going to be taken care of?" As long as my kids are going to be taken care of, I'm fine…

IT: What about the pain aspect?

Only 6% of all deaths occur in your sleep at home, painlessly and peacefully. There are instant manners of death where there's no pain. But there are instances where people are trapped in a vehicle and there is a lot of pain. When I see that I wish there was something I could have done to ease the suffering. I hate the fact that people have to suffer… When I see people with long-term conditions, I can understand and support suicide. I can totally understand why people like Dr, Kevorkian exist….I respect that. I've never understood why assisted suicide is illegal. My brother used to beg for us to kill him all the time. But we couldn't do it.

IT: Tell us about autopsies.

Every organ is weighed to be within normal parameters. If you are a 260-pound man or a 180-pound female, your heart is going to be a different size… The weight of organs will help determine the cause of death. A large heart, aorta, a fracture, all of that's weighed. Your blood count is taken into account. It's a little bit different if it's been established already that a person had an illness. What normally will happen is they will take samples from the cells and those can be used in research; there might be a specific pharmaceutical company that can do the research. A lot of people with cancer will sign a contract with doctors/hospitals that allows them to use the organs for research. Autopsies are not always performed unless there is a question. Car accident victims, not normally unless they're checking blood alcohol content. A family can always request an autopsy. The body will be processed, billed to insurance or the family afterwards, and a final exam is done before it's transferred to a mortuary home. It all depends on the circumstances. Some autopsies are very intensive.

IT: Tell us about your experiences working in the morgue.

They were interesting. Two of the first ones I saw were car accidents. It was a simple procedure because the cause was a car accident, but one of them was ruled asphyxiation because she broke her neck, which caused her to choke. The first autopsy I ever watched was named John. I was with two of my fellow classmates. One got very, very sick. I did not get sick. I was kind of fascinated; I wanted to be right up in there to see what they were doing. I wanted to see more. I took that as a good sign.

After that I spent several late, late nights. Most of the deaths that occur between 2am and 7am are car accidents, alcohol-related, and murders. 9/10s of victims who come in from murder is from someone they know. A LOT of car accidents. (The first time I talked with Christy she mentioned a time a man, dead of course, came into the morgue with his dismembered penis in his hand. Christy guessed he was a John.)

IT: So do you have a fear of being in a car?

I left here at 2:15 Sat. night and watching these people on the road, I could tell they were drunk, and I was thinking "where's the cops?". It scares me. I thought to myself, "all it takes is one of these idiots….did I hug my kids today, did I tell them I love them today, did I tell my parents I love them today?" My fear of driving is not irrational. I feel it to an extent every time I drive. Some of it just seems so senseless; these accidents that occur could be easily stopped.

IT: What else have you learned from the morgue?

What really, really bothers me when is kids that die from abuse. What I've found with (dead) children is that the abuse has been long-term. The fact that someone could have stopped it and nobody did anything to protect these children, that infuriates me. You know for a fact that with long-term abuse, someone knows about it. (She shakes her head in disgust)…Especially those mothers whose boyfriends do it and they don't stand up for their children…You're supposed to protect your child! You're supposed to go before your children.

I feel one of the biggest problems is there are no repercussions for people who fraudulently report abuse. People like that are causing a backlog when CPS's time should be spent on people that really do need the help.

IT: How does all of this affect your viewpoint or attitude toward religion, life after death, spirituality?

I'm not into organized religion but I believe there is something on the other side. Do I believe in life after death? Absolutely. Do I believe in ghosts? Absolutely. My brother haunts my house right now.

IT: What do you think about the differences between how death is treated here in America vs. other countries?

 I know that there are many countries that just cremate pretty much all bodies. Two reasons: It is simpler and some places have less space for burials… I personally would choose cremation….I could stay with my kids forever; they could keep my ashes. I know in Africa there are some that do cremation because they say it releases the spirit. Several countries have to bury the dead above ground; some countries have family plots one on top of the other. In the Jewish faith, you have to be buried before the next sundown.

Americans think of death so differently. Other cultures welcome it for the family's that are ill. America is into self-gratification, this "I'm gonna live forever and do all these things before I die" and they're not realistic. There's a total circle of life. If we were meant to live forever we'd live forever. You have to be comfortable with your own mortality.

IT: What do you think about the way in which Americans have gotten so far from taking care of their dead? I mean, many years ago, family took care of a dead family member. In our society now, it's gotten so much away from families taking care of bodies. A lot of families don't even see or touch a body.

Traditional roles have changed. Women used to stay home. The care of the elderly fell on the wife. Way back when, if you were in pain, they gave you a bottle of cough syrup, they gave you morphine. Now with pain management, it's almost impossible to take someone home. We'd all like that think that if something happened to us our family would take care of us, but logically, is it possible? Sometimes, sometimes not.  A lot of people don't do it at home because resentment builds. You lose your own life. Things have gotten so complicated in life now.

IT: What about the practical/cosmetic aspects of dealing with the dead?

Normally the bodies themselves will be stapled or taped. Once your organs are removed it's an empty space. At the mortuary home they will drain all blood and embalm. There's someone that will do make-up, any corrective make-up. Perhaps you were in a car accident and got cut form your cheek down your neck, they're trying to mask that with pancake-thick makeup. They stitch the mouth shut normally.

IT: But why is everything so complicated? (This was a rhetorical question that none of us seemed able to put into a simple answer.)

What do your kids and mother think about what you're studying to be?

My kids think it's weird. My mother is not shocked…she says I've always had, not a morbid fascination, but a fascination with the way things work…I was never satisfied with the simple answer… She says I deal with live people fine, but I probably do better with people who don't talk back because she says I always have to be right! (Christy laughs.)

So it seems you've found your passion, that this is your calling. You seem really comfortable with death.

A body is like a map. Every scar, every bone that's been broken, there's a story. I kind of make up a story in my own way. I assume what happened. There are some things that are certain.