Working in a funeral home

starrykitten

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Hello!

I have a character who is hired to help bring dead bodies to the funeral home. This story is flash fiction so there isn't room to give tons of detail, but I do have some basic questions.

*What would his job title be? (Tried to Google this and the closest I got was "removal staff," but I would imagine there is something more specific.)

*Do funeral homes do any kind of screening or bonding aside from basic employment screening (criminal record, drug test)?

*Is it realistic to have transporting the bodies be an entry-level position for my character?

Thank you for your help. :)
 

WeaselFire

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Body transport is often done by positions called driver, assistant and orderly (not sure why the last one, but a local funeral home calls them that...). It is an entry level position for most. All businesses do background checks and funeral homes have some state licensing requirements you may want to check.

By the way, almost all funeral homes I know have primarily family working in them. If it helps your story.

Jeff
 

shaldna

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Well, in the UK and Ireland the funeral directors will come out and collect the body if a person dies in circumstances that aren't unexpected - such as very elderly or ill.

They take them to the funeral home.

Not sure of the process following an accident or something, I only have first hand knowledge of long term sick.
 

Bolero

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Following an accident they would either be going to a hospital for treatment - and then dying - or be taken straight to the morgue. Either way, funeral director (are they not called undertakers any more?) would pick them up once released by the hospital/morgue.

Be aware that certain types of death in the UK need an extra certificate to release them for cremation rather than burial. Septicaemia is one. The kind of thing that just might lead to exhumation and further autopsy.

The undertaker's in town uses zip plastic bags and a folding stretcher/trolley thing. Might be a hearse, or could be a plain van. I would expect the person to be well dressed in a black suit, white shirt and black tie as a minimum, not overalls.
 

starrykitten

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Body transport is often done by positions called driver, assistant and orderly (not sure why the last one, but a local funeral home calls them that...). It is an entry level position for most. All businesses do background checks and funeral homes have some state licensing requirements you may want to check.

By the way, almost all funeral homes I know have primarily family working in them. If it helps your story.

Jeff

Thanks, Jeff! That helps a lot. Yes, I have heard that it can be hard to get hired on at a funeral home because of the "family business" nature. Trying to figure how to work around that in my story. :)
 

kaitie

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I had a friend in high school who worked for a local funeral parlor. She wasn't family, they just needed someone to fill a position and she needed a job, so I'm sure it's possible.
 

Bolero

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Incidentally, there is quite a lot on US dramas of using makeup (sometimes extreme make-up) to make a body look good for an open casket funeral.
I've never experienced that being offered in the UK, or indeed an open casket funeral. You can view the body at the funeral home, but if that is to be done for more than three days after death, it has to be embalmed, otherwise the coffin is sealed.
 

jclarkdawe

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Only title I've ever heard is "Dipwad." Otherwise they use names.

Most times there's only one guy, who hopes the gurney is going to work. Hospital this works fine, in the field, not so well. Accident scene you've got fire department. Death at home and you might have to ask a family member to help.

Any accidental death goes to the morgue for an autopsy. Deaths at home can go direct to the funeral home if the death is timely (expected). Police will contact the on-duty medical examiner for a release to the funeral home.

Bodies are double-bagged when there is a leakage factor. Bags are not air-tight, and sometimes the windows will be rolled all the way down with the air conditioner on full blast.

Bodies in rigor will often need the rigor broken to get through doors and things like that.

Moving bodies is in one way an entry level position, but you need the right personality. A lot of people can't handle bodies. Being rude with bodies will get complaints very quickly.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

King Neptune

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Have been acquainted with a few funeral directors. Most of the employees are relatives, but they usually have extras as ushers for large funerals. I was acquainted with a woman who was a friend of a funeral director, and she did hair dressing when that was called for.
 

cmhbob

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I've heard them called Funeral Attendants, Funeral Home Assistants, and FH Staff.

In central Ohio, one of the larger firms does its own removals. Others use a company that contracts out its services. The same company also contracts with the Coroner's Office to do crime scene removals. The one large firm had funeral directors, embalmers, and drivers. Driver could do any vehicle function: transfers, drive hearse in procession, drive the limo, or do removals. This particular firm always sent a driver and a funeral director on removals, but there was no legal requirement to do so.

(I worked for 6.5 years as a funeral escort in central Ohio.)
 
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Karen Junker

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I rented rooms to two brothers who were in training to be funeral directors. They worked at a med-largish funeral home that had its own cemetery. Even in training they were called funeral directors. They had to learn how to do everything, including embalming. They would go out to the homes of the deceased (or to the morgue once a body was released) and take a stretcher that was on wheels (it could be lowered or raised up to waist-height if needed). They drove suburbans with really darkened windows.

When my son died at age 3, the funeral home director/owner came out to the house in a regular station wagon type car -- he carried my son's body wrapped in a very nice, soft, yellow baby blanket (which he brought with him) out to the car.
 

shaldna

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Incidentally, there is quite a lot on US dramas of using makeup (sometimes extreme make-up) to make a body look good for an open casket funeral.
I've never experienced that being offered in the UK, or indeed an open casket funeral. You can view the body at the funeral home, but if that is to be done for more than three days after death, it has to be embalmed, otherwise the coffin is sealed.

We had an open casket service for my grandfather when he died. And whoever dressed and prepared him did a brilliant job - they even went so far as to remove one of the cancerous growths on his face and fill it so he actually looked more like himself again. But I don't know how common that is.

It's pretty common for Catholics to be brought home to lie for a couple of days so family and friends can come by to see them and pay their last respects etc and in that case the casket would usually be open for the whole time.
 

Cyia

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Something I've not seen mentioned is background. A driver might be an entry position, but in the US at least, there's a background check as people with certain convictions (like sex offenders) aren't allowed to handle dead bodies. So it's not like you could go in on a Tuesday morning, meet the director and be sent out after lunch to pick up a body at the hospital.

Also, most states require that a person who didn't die in hospital or hospice (at home) care be taken for an autopsy to determine cause of death. You don't get too many bodies taken directly from the home to the funeral home. I know there are exceptions that can be made for people whose religious and cultural beliefs include the 24 hour, or "by sundown" rules, where the body must be interred quickly, but I don't know how those exceptions are implemented with the health department and such.

And some of those "family" practices are carried out in the family home. The funeral home in the town where I grew up was a home on the top floor, visitation area for the deceased on the main floor, and storage for both bodies in prep, and coffins in the basement. They had a chapel attached to the side for services, with a garage on the other side for the cars.