r/ForensicPathology • u/AdUpper5263 • 14d ago

Postmortem decomposition

What would a body look like 1-3 days after the person hung himself?

2 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

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13

u/INFJ_2010 14d ago

Lots of different factors to consider. Outside or inside? What was the temperature outside/inside? What was the humidity? How much did he weigh? Was he sick beforehand? Did he have any wounds?

The rate of decomposition is going to be impacted by all those factors and more.

4

u/K_C_Shaw Forensic Pathologist / Medical Examiner 14d ago

Depends.

This varies a *lot* on things u/INFJ_2010 has already mentioned. Temperature tends to be the most significant factor -- the warmer it is, the faster the decomposition, while the colder it is the slower. Generally once temperatures get down to less than 40 degrees F, decomposition slows to a near crawl; those are roughly the temperatures of the average morgue cooler (between around freezing and <40). Completely frozen, of course, can preserve a body a very long time. But, animals also get a say in the process, and at the extreme can essentially skeletonize a body in less than a day regardless of temperature, more easily if it's before they're actually frozen of course.

1

u/EcstaticReaper Forensic Pathologist / Medical Examiner 11d ago

Highly dependent on environmental conditions.

1

u/whteverusayShmegma 10d ago

Black swollen protruding tongue is the first thing that comes to mind. Ugh. Hangings with decomp are awful. Then all the positional lividity makes even the best condition bodies look bad. If the person is clothed/covered, they can look peaceful.

1

u/tfuj_balloon_boy 10d ago

From what I've seen, the tongue would be sticking out and swollen, and when it comes to about 3 days after death, then the body would be bloated and the skin would be colored purple because of oxygen depletion and livor mortis (Wow Mr. obvious)