The phenomenon of

Humans are often attracted to deadly films like The Walking Dead or How to Get Away with Murder, but few know what actually happens when they die. The body has quite interesting and scary phenomena within hours after the heart stops beating. Let's see what it is!

Death Rattle

The dying hiccup

This word is pretty much used in the hospital, expressing the sound quite frightening when a person is dying. When the body loses its cough reflex and swallowing ability , leading to the accumulation of saliva in the throat, at this moment, the hiccups will be emitted. This sound often frightens the patient's family, even haunts, although it rarely causes pain to the sick. Doctors often use painkillers, smoking methods or tranquilizers to create comfort for patients, help them to go away peacefully . Besides, this also avoids fear for the family.

Breathing rhythm Cheynes Stokes (Cheynes Stokes Respiration)

Breathing rhythm Cheynes Stokes

This is abnormal breathing , alternating with a large amplitude between rapid breathing and the period of apnea (apnea). The cause of this condition is that the heart is weak and when it is overactive, it leads to rapid breathing (hyperventilate). Shortly thereafter is the period of apnea due to insufficient energy to maintain the body. When the heart is weak, the organs in the body receive less blood and oxygen, leading to the death of the cells and the patient will stop breathing. People who are dying often have this phenomenon but it also occurs in patients with heart failure or respiratory disorders.

Excretion (Defecation)

Excretion

After death, the muscles no longer receive energy, the intestines become loose and appear excretion , especially in those who eat before death. This greatly supports autopsy in abnormal death cases. For patients in hospice, they may not find appetite in the last days so this phenomenon rarely occurs.

Hair and nails looked like they were growing out

Have you ever heard hair and nails continue to grow after the dead are in the coffin? Not right, although it looks so true! When people die, the skin dries and shrinks against nail and hair follicles, making nails and hair look longer than when they were alive.

Spasticity (Rigor Mortis)

Spasticity

To put it more simply, this is a hardening of the dead body. After death, the body cannot break down the connections that cause muscle contraction to lead to permanent spasticity. In most cases, the spasticity occurs 1 to 3 hours after death and is in a hard state completely after 24 hours . This phenomenon is also present in the eyelids, so when the eyes are not closed when dying, the eye muscles will keep the eyes open (death does not close the eyes).

Can be big, urinate in pants

After a period of time, the muscles will become stiff and dilate, including sphincter, which controls the process of hypertrophy. After people die, if there is something in the person to be released, the muscles will push all of this out.

The wrinkles disappear immediately

The muscles that lose tension will not produce obnoxious wrinkles on the forehead anymore. As you age, sagging skin problems will still occur but at least the forehead area will be less wrinkled.

Hypothermia (Algor Mortis)

Hypothermia

The body hypothermia after death (also known as cold corpse) occurs only when the ambient temperature is lower than the body temperature at the time of death. The degree of cold also depends on many factors: body position (compared to the Sun), clothing and room temperature at the place of death. The dead in the bathroom floor will be cold faster than outdoors 35 degrees. In addition, obese people also have longer cold periods, babies have relatively fast cold levels. Normally, it takes about 24 hours for a corpse to be completely cold.

Purge Fluid

Flow fluid

Decay, forming a reddish-brown liquid with a rotten odor, flowing from the mouth and nose, is called purge Fluid. It can confuse many people with brain injury . This situation is explained by the formation of gas in the body , accumulation in the intestines and stomach, which causes the stomach to stretch, putting pressure on the discharge from the nose, mouth, enclosed area, and rectum. This phenomenon is useful for determining downtime. In areas with high temperatures, fluid flow may appear less than 24 hours.

Some parts of the body still work

As soon as the person stops breathing and the heart stops beating, the body's organs begin to die but all the cells don't die immediately. Skin cells can continue to survive for many days; in contrast, brain cells will die 3 minutes later due to lack of oxygen. The tissues such as the cornea, skin, bone marrow and even heart valves can still operate 15 hours after the last breath is taken.

Some body parts still work.

Skin color changes

Gravity creates purple spots on the human body when it dies. When the heart stops pumping blood to the body, gravity will cause the lowest areas of the body to become purple . In fact, these purple spots will help staff investigate the death time of the body.

A layer of wax

After decay, the body decomposes quickly to turn into a skeleton. In the process, if the body comes into contact with soil or cold water , it can produce adipocere fat , a wax material formed from bacteria that break down tissue. Adipocere acts as a natural preservative on internal organs. It may mislead researchers that a body dies much earlier than they thought, as was the case of a 300-year-old adipocere corpse just found in Switzerland.

After decay, the body decomposes quickly to turn into a skeleton.