Palliative care nurse Julie is on a mission to eliminate the stigma and fear surrounding death.
The registered nurse previously worked in the intensive care unit and “saw a lot of deaths.”
She says on her website: ‘As healthcare workers, we would talk to each other about the likelihood of our patients dying, but we wouldn’t talk to the patients or their families.
“This (led me) to want to speak up and advocate for my patients and their families and start having family meetings.”
This turned her into a palliative care nurse, where she “saw the power each body has to die naturally and how beautiful it really was.”
Now, Nurse Julie posts educational videos on her YouTube channel answering common questions people have about death.
In a recent video Viewed more than 580,000 times, The Nurse explains exactly what happens in the moments, hours and days after a person dies.
The body goes through several stages in the process of death and decomposition, Nurse Julie said.
IMMEDIATELY AFTER DEATH
In the moments immediately after death, the body relaxes completely. This is the first stage of decomposition, called hypostasis.
Nurse Julie said: ‘All the elements of the body that retain fluid relax. That’s why death can sometimes be a disaster.
Because of how relaxed the body becomes, those who have just died may urinate, defecate, or experience bodily fluids coming from the nose, mouth, ears, or eyes.
He added: “I like to talk about it so people aren’t surprised if that happens; it’s very normal and sometimes to be expected.”
The decomposition stage called autolysis, or “self-digestion” stage, also occurs here, and enzymes begin to break down oxygen-deprived tissue.
Then the body temperature drops.
Everyone’s body reacts differently, Nurse Julie said, and some will experience an immediate drop in body temperature, while cooling may not begin for others until an hour or two after they have died, which is known as the algor mortis stage of decomposition.
The hospice nurse said body temperature typically drops 1.5 degrees per hour until it eventually reaches the temperature of whatever room the body is in.
SEVERAL HOURS AFTER DEATH
As the body settles into death, Nurse Julie said blood will begin to pool toward the floor.
She said: ‘If you let someone stay there for too long, which we do sometimes; You don’t have to rush and make sure your loved one leaves the house; If you turn it over, you’ll notice that usually the back of your legs, the whole back will look purple or darker, that’s because all your blood is going down.
‘Gravity is bringing him down. Therefore, they will eventually get a darker skin tone on their butt.
An hour or two after death is also when rigor mortis sets in and continues for approximately the next 24 hours.
Rigor mortis is the tightening of a person’s muscles after death, which occurs when the body’s metabolism stops and there is a depletion of adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
The body needs ATP to break down the actin-myosin filaments of muscle fibers. These filaments are what contract and relax to allow movement when a person is alive.
When a person dies and their ATP is depleted, actin and myosin cannot be broken down, causing permanent muscle contraction and hardening of the body.
Nurse Julie said: “I’ve seen people become very stiff almost immediately, like a few minutes, after death and other people, their body takes longer.”
Rigor mortis first occurs in small muscles, such as the eyes and face, then migrates to the neck, trunk, body, hands, fingertips, and feet.
Additionally, approximately 12 hours after death, the body will feel cold to the touch.
24 TO 36 HOURS AFTER DEATH
Palliative care nurse Julie explained exactly what happens in the moments, hours and days after someone dies.
About a day to a day and a half after a person dies, rigor mortis subsides and the body will begin to go limp again.
Nurse Julie said that the body’s tissues relax and make the stiffness go away.
At that time the body is usually in the morgue, where it will be prepared in the way the family has requested, either for burial or cremation.
He added: “In a world where people did not have access to a morgue or a health system and simply died naturally, our bodies are made to decompose after death.”
Twenty-four hours is also when the body has cooled to its core temperature to match the temperature of its surroundings.
FOUR TO 10 DAYS AFTER DEATH
The last stage of decomposition is called putrefaction. During this stage, gases are released from the body that cause an odor and further discoloration of the skin occurs.
During putrefaction, intricate bodily processes stop and the delicate balance of bacteria in our body is disturbed.
The bacteria then feed on the tissue, causing swelling, and eventually migrate to the liver, spleen, heart, and brain.
The body begins to expel gases such as methane and ammonia, giving off a foul odor.
10 TO 20 DAYS AFTER DEATH
Black rot occurs 10 to 20 days after death when the exposed body turns black, swells further, and releases fluids and more odors.
Nurse Julie said: ‘This is the part where the body is literally decompensating and how we would die and how the body would die before we had things like morgues. So it’s something very normal.
“However, we’re not normally exposed to it… but it’s a natural part of the body’s decomposition.”