I am a private ambulance driver collecting the deceased from homes and hospitals

Jeez please don't post your name and where you work on reddit some people are crazy. Edit- I mean some users not you ofc

Yeah didn't really think about that, I've updated it aha

Your work address is still on the second image.

The work address is the main crematorium. Can Google that from the company name. I'm not fussed. I'm never there aha

Edit: the company is very transparent, has a walk through of the entire crematorium - including the cremators. Just not the mortuary

Ever have one wake up on ya?

No aha, that would be freaky

Will say the mortuary at midnight is a bit creepy. 😂

Lucky Im not there at night much

haha just messing about. cheers m8

Yeah zombies don't exist 🤣

No probs!

Lucky I'm not there at night much

Better hadn't be...

Well depende what time I get back or if I do a night shift prepping Our crematorium runs 24/7 including night time

No aha, that would be freaky

Will say the mortuary at midnight is a bit creepy. 😂

Lucky Im not there at night much

Did you see an uptick during the Covid waves?

Massive uptick to be honest, almost doubled and we've been doing more and more since. I remember doing COVID collections everyday

Now haven't had a COVID collection in weeks

do you catch any biohazardous sicknesses from the corpses?

None so far.

Some from hospitals will have an infectious disease label. And we just confirm how that travels

Mostly cause we wear gloves we're fine and if needed we add a mask

I suspected as much. I heard the same from friends who work in ICUs. Thanks for your reply!

No probs! COVID deaths have dropped dramatically now

That’s reassuring!

Definitely

We collect from nursing homes and such as well and we collected a lot of people with COVID before but now .. not for agee

What about suicides, at the hospital I work at they have increased alarmingly!

Suicides not so much. We collect mainly people from old age and such but also we don't see cause of death unless we read the paperwork which I don't tend to do

Collected one guy who was 105! No health complications, just died of old age

It’s great you are such a conscientious worker.

Yeah I love my job and I see it as another form of care

Most of the drivers do. But obviously have to remember they're dead and that all we cant get too attached. Hence why I don't read the paperwork

It's a fine line

It is a necessary form of care…thanks!

No probs!

How did you end up in this line of work, and what educational background is required, if any?

Pure chance, started in the office doing prepaid plans as it was a job on a good wage

And got more into it and moved over to collecting the deceased later on

And no education needed you learn on the job

Here in Canada we call what you do "body removal". I did that as a young University student in the mid 1970's, working for a private contractor. He had a contract with the Toronto Police for removals to the Coroner's office. A plain black van with no rear windows. Some times we would get a special trip to transport a body to one of the medical schools for dissection classes. JimB.

Sounds super interesting!

How often do you hear quotes from the "Bring out your dead" scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

Not too often

Main jokes are around us having free funerals and any death pun

Such as, done and dusted

Free funerals? Lmaoo

All the employees get a free funeral with the company same with our close family

That’s a really lovely initiative from the company. Funerals can be so expensive and can put entire families into debt, but I’m sure you know all about that!

Definitely, though as we do direct cremation there's no big funeral so price wise we're quite cheap. Our most expensive is 1595 + 200 for a family gathering with a prepaid plan.

No plan is slightly cheaper. 1195 for a collection from hospitals or mortuary 1445 from home or hospice with no mortuary

"I'm not dead yet!"

That's a common response to our marketing!

With all of that constant exposure to death, do you believe in an afterlife?

To be honest no

Just because I see the whole thing and I think if there was an afterlife then the bodies wouldn't decay or something so they wouldn't have to see themselves in that state

I understand it might be something you get used to, but I've a friend in the same business, and stuff like teen suicides just sucks for everyone involved is pretty much how he tells it.

Are there times when you just need to go home and hug someone? What types of cases would that be for you?

And a second question, are there times when it's the opposite? What is a great day at work for you?

To be honest, I don't find myself affected too much with anything

I've collected a few children which has been sad.

But the main way I deal is to think I'm helping the family ultimately so I'm doing a good thing.

And to be honest, I love my job. Morbid sometimes. Yes. But I love it and really enjoy it, but then it's a great company and great people I work with. So. Yeah. I also get to feel I'm making a difference to people

How often do your clients complain about your driving?

😂 never, one of the perks of them having passed. No backseat driving!

But on a serious note we do get some complaints when they see a van in a McDonald's car park, though those complaints dont even get passed to us as after all, we're doing 16 hour shifts a lot of the time, so. We gotta eat

Does McD pay you per person or per kilogram?

Approx £20 per kilo 😂😂

Kidding ofc

They keep it to themselves most of the time, I just think they're trying to be polite

I mean it's lovely they never interrupt😂

What percent of the dead are cremated versus buried in the UK and are the bodies handled differently for each option?

England is 80% cremation

Scotland is opposite, 20% cremation

And can't speak for buried too much. But unless families are having a viewing I can't imagine much changes.

Aside from we remove glass/pacemakers etc as they can't go into the cremator

How would you best describe the smell of human decay and is it true that it is such a distinctive odor that it is difficult if not impossible to simulate/replicate it fully? (As in general biological waste or animal carcasses )

Smells a bit like ... Rotting food I guess. Specifically meat.

Its difficult to describe for sure.

A trick I use is a fruity gum when I know I've got one that's particularly decomposed, covers the smell

Ever had to pick up a close friend or family member?

No, and if it came up I'd reject the collection

I'm surprised you wouldn't unless it was an accidental death or post autopsy.
I help out at a funeral home, mostly collecting the dead. Whenever bereaved are involved, washing, dressing, or simply carrying the closed casket it's a positive experience for them. Having done everything I usually do for my grandfather I'm happy that I didn't decline the offer.

Any reason you think you wouldn't?

Uh just because I'd want to remember them alive. I wouldn't want my last image of them to be in a body bag

To those watching, don't be afraid to ask 😂 you won't ask anything I've not heard before 😂

Do you find that dealing with the practicalities of death makes it less a thing to dread or fear?

Definitely, didn't dread it too much before but now it's just what it is now

Mum was an ambulance driver during the blitz, but she collected the living, the dead, but mostly in between. Small world.

That's crazy! I'm sure she has some crazy stories!

She's gone now, but the only crazy story she ever told was about her German ex-boyfriend who came to visit her home town in a strafing run and waved to her. I think the other stories were too difficult to tell, death and more death.

Yeah I get that

What is your official job title?

Biggest mistake you've made on the job?

Private ambulance crew member (scheduled days)

Basically the scheduled bit is that I do Monday to Friday

Although within the company we're referred to as Operatives and externally when people ask what I do I just say private ambulance driver

And probably when I took a corner too fast when I first started and the body flipped over.

A common mistake when you're new, particularly on the corner I did it on, it's a sharp bend and I took it about 20mph but it was a lot sharper than I expected.

It was fine, the deceased was ok. But it's a mistake nonetheless

the deceased was ok

best answer ever

“Their condition remained stable.”

Accurate, there was no change 😂

Any creepy stories?

Creepy not so much, but I can describe some pretty grim deceased though if you can handle it 🤣

Sure if you're willing! Dont worry my mom was tasked to look after a morgue during her residency and she used to tell me these kind of stories as a kid lol

Definitely, weve collected quite a few from car crashes and things so there's a lot of blood often so much can't see much of them

Another common one is where a funeral director hasn't had refrigerated storage and they're mouldy or have maggots

But probably most common is from hospitals and theres fluid and the smell can be awful, one had an infectious tag and yellow fluid everywhere. Who knows what It was but my colleague and I just looked at each other with a "wtf" expression especially when they just cut the infectious tag off and said "oh we don't need it anymore"

Jeez what do I gotta do to avoid being maggoty? Just go to the right funeral director?

Make sure the funeral home has a fridge and not just a cold room which in summer is not cold at all lol

Exactly and hope the paperwork is processed quick for a quick cremation 😂

Are families ever aggressive towards you? How often are families fighting at pick-up?

None for me personally

But i know a colleague did get shoved against a wall

And more recently a family member was drunk and shouting and such.

Greif does crazy things

We only collect if they're 100% sure. And even then it's not a done deal we can always take the deceased somewhere else if they change their mindm

And her quite a few arguing among themselves. One where 1 person had a lot of questions and the other was telling her no just call the office on Monday

But normally we just get out quick when that happens

What do you make?

I make 25k a year cause I'm Monday to Friday. Those who do 4 days on and 4 days off as a shift pattern make 29k and those who do nights make .. 33k ? I think

All the salaries are standardised and public on job adverts

Reality is more with overtime

Is that a living wage were you are form? In the US regardless of what state your In a 25k salary is poverty

As a single income it's not fab, but livable for sure. But reality is, I never actually earn my base salary

With overtime and food subsidiary I get between 2.2k and 2.7k a month after tax

Edit: should state that for the industry. It's very good, especially for just collecting. Many companies pay less and you have to fully prep the deceased for cremation. But we don't have time with amount of volume so we have dedicated people for that

Have you ever been particularly happy one day and just been smiling to yourself or humming a happy tune, and then you realise you are working and maybe your expression is a bit inappropriate?

(You do have a great smile by the way!)

Haha, all the bloody time 😂

Why do you need an ambulance to pick up bodies? Is it a regulation or is it just because they’re built conveniently? I’m sure a van would be a lot cheaper than an ambulance.

They are vans, ford transits, some are extended wheel base ones, they've just been blacked out and have a lift in the back so we can carry 4 deceased on board

Private ambulance is just the term the industry uses. All funeral directos use the term, so if you ever see one, that's what it is. It's just used to describe them and gives us some leeway on parking in dodgy spots, double yellows etc because sometimes we don't have a choice the house is .. where it is. Can't move it so.

When people see ambulance they tend to leave us alone.

You asked about regulation. In funerals here in the UK, there's no regulation at all.

Regulations are changing, Funeral directors will soon fall under the FCA rules and regulations.

Prepaid plans only. We've submitted the application, we're ready

But the actual funeral side won't be affected by that

How big is your collection?

How do you arrange them?

Not sure how you mean big, so I'll answer both.

We collect up to about 40 stone people, we have large coffins for people

If you mean big in terms of how many, we can collect 1 or 4 deceased in 1 trip. But kind of depends on the day.

And we arrange typically on cremation date and that dictates the order of collection, beyond that, I just get my work and go, we have a team of schedulers who arranged everything and sorts our paperwork etc

I appreciate your response. I was actually just making a dumb joke.

All good aha 😂

You don’t read the background or papers on what happened to the deceased but was there a time early on where you were more curious about the people you were picking up?

There was, when I started if I had paperwork I'd read it cause I was curious, especially if they were young, probably stopped about a couple weeks in

Edit: to add, the paperwork only says personal details and cause of death. Beyond that we don't know anything even if we do read it

Glad you figured out early. Some people don’t realize that just because they can doesn’t mean they should.

Definitely. I found I was getting sad and attached

And you can't afford to in this job. Have to remember it is a job at the end of the day

Very important one. But a job nonetheless

What's the strangest (or funniest/wackiest) way a "customer" has died?

Had one who attempted to commit suicide by hanging themself in the bathroom. But it didn't hold, so they fell but then they hit their head on the bathtub and died

Or

One where a woman was giving her husband head and choked. And died of a heart attack cause of the stress of it all.

Or

guy who died fucking his wife, but uh had to wait for paramedics and police cause he was uh..stuck. they had to separate them.

# 3 is the winner... but #2 is pretty good too

Aha definitely it was entertaining to read those ones

How does a penis get stuck in a vagina? I've heard of it with dogs, but not humans.

Don't even know, didn't ask

Jfc... the poor wife

Definitely aha

What's the ripest one you had to pick up?

To be honest most are ok on pickup

It's more later on when there's delays in paperwork, obviously there's only so much we can do to slow the decomposition

But I will say the ones we collect from other FDs are worst cause of the delays for funerals and such. Mould is definitely a thing.

And fluid, one I prepped today had a good 3 inches of fluid in the coffin.

oh jesus lmao what the fuck. i never thought about that

Yeah what the fluid was... No idea but it was there 😂

Have you read the book "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"? If so, what did you think of it?

Never read it!

I really enjoyed it. Worth checking out, especially given your line of work!

I'll check it out! Thanks

The author is Caitlin Doughty and she has a great informative YouTube channel {Ask a Mortician} and a podcast {Order of the Good Death}. I also find her hilarious which is always fun lol

Not seen her but there is those ask a X series and theres a mortician one too

So interesting to hear more about embalming and things where we don't do it and so I don't know anything about that side of things

Have you ever turned up to collect someone who turned out to be alive?

No, there's processes in place, a Dr comes out and checks the deceased before we go

Have you ever had a deceased person that was too tall to fit into your ambulance? If so, did you cut them in half and glue them back together, or what? (Asking for a friend :-) )

Aha no, not yet, the vans are quite long so over 6ft isn't a problem

Besides people shrink as they age and mostly we do pick up the elderly.. for obvious reasons

Have you ever picked up bodies from a murder scene?

Nope, thankfully

Have you had any contact of spirits?

Not that I know of!

How often does the phrase “Bring out yer dead!” run through your head every day?

All the time 😂

Ever have a body sit up on ya???

No but sometimes they are sat up and we collect them as they are

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Correct, but I do find when I mention where I work people have questions, so thought I'd post, and as you can see theres quite a few questions.

Unsurprisingly since it's an industry that isn't posted or talked about much if ever

Do you transfer the bodies by yourself? Do you bring the coffin inside with you and transfer to coffin first?

So when we collect we don't out them in coffins yet we out them on stretchers

Then when at the mortuary we put them in coffins

And yes sometimes, depends on where I'm going and how long the drives are that's what determines if we're paired up or not

Edit: we do sometimes have to move encoffined bodies between mortuaries which is also something typically done in pairs but can be done alone depends how many people are around and private address collections are always in pairs. Never know what you might get and what you might need to do to get them out of the house and into our care

How’d you get into this field of work? How many years have you been doing this? Whats the hours like?

By chance.

Did the prepaid plans for the company before Driver needed help

And I loved it and made the transfer 2 weeks later

Long hours lots of driving

And since Nov 2021

What’s your favorite movie, or book?

Movie: avengers or the Harry potter series

Book: anyting James Patterson

Wouldn’t that make you a hearse driver?

No

I don't drive a hearse. I drive a private ambulance

Aka a blacked out transit van

What's the salary and hours like?

Base salary is 25k based on 8 hour days

Which

Never happens .. ever

Typically 12 -16 hour days and we get a hell of overtime for it

So base would be 1500 per Month

But I average 2500 per month cause of overtime

How often do you yell "bring out your dead" like in Monty Python?

Never, but I think it 😂

You have said that you collect all sorts of people, large and small; do you work alone or do you need several of you to load ?

Ps, thank you for your humorously honest responses; having had relatives pass it makes me feel a lot more at ease knowing that folks like yourself are doing this important job.

Absolutely aha, we do and working alone or together varies

Home collections always are pairs

But can call in extra assistance if needed (once family advised she was "average" she was 25 stone and we called in another team. So 4 of us did the removal)

Hospitals, depends on distance and length of day.

But the hospital will advise if the deceased is large and needs a pair or trio and we send the relevant number of people needed

25 stone is an awful lot to handle sensitively! Many many years ago I worked as a lifeguard and had to lift an unconscious person out of a pool, they don’t call it “dead weight” for nothing!!

Thank you for doing this AMA t has been one of the most interesting ones I have read for a long long time :) have a great day kind internet stranger

Definitely, it's very heavy aha, took 4 of us.

Not the heaviest person weve had cremated

Heaviest was 40 stone

Tho before my time at the company

Edit: worth nothing that sometimes safety overrules elegance, so there has been times we have to use a more versatile stretcher and drag them down the stairs / out the house

Is it true that any bigger than that and you need specialist (farm animal) sized machines for cremation?

Uh I think so? Any bigger and we take them elsewhere as they won't fit in ours

How did you decide to be an ambulance driver? Also, have you ever gone to pick up the corpse just to realize the person is still alive?

Chance, was selling the prepaid plans and a driver needed assistance, and really enjoyed it so transferred over full time

You ever collect the remains of people who jumped in front of trains and such? Where there's just pieces and mush left of them.

I was offered that job once and I decided to decline.

I've never done it... But then I'd guess they go to coroner..?

How do you avoid taking work home with you? Is it stressful dealing with so much death on a regular basis?

I don't find it stressful cause at the end of the day it's in terms of the workm

Easy

Just the emotional bit to deal with.

But you just separate work and home into boxes in your mind. Easier said than done

A friend of mine used to do this as well. He said the weirdest thing ever was after he had done a pickup and heard a noise, turns out, it was the body in the back farting.

Ever had to deal with a gassy corpse?

Yep and something called "the last breath" which is as it sounds.

But they purge. The liquid inside has to go.. somewhere

Out one end or the other

Have you ever dropped a body?

No thankfully. But sometimes it has happened to others

How much do you get paid?

25k as I'm Monday to Friday, other shifts offer more money

But reality is that I never actually earn that base cause of overtime

Normally 2.5 ish a month after tax

Do you talk to the bodies? I'm imagining myself just absentmindedly chatting up my dog about random shit when it's just me and her. Do you do the same with the bodies? Tell them they had a rough day lol.

Sometimes, I don't tend to, but many drivers do.

For me it's a little too personal, and I find I prefer not to personalize them too much, think I'd be more sad more often

But each to their own

Have you ever propped a corpse up like Weekend At Bernie's, and moved its mouth to your own words, like a ventriloquist?

Nah aha

Do you get to use the car pool lane?

No,but we do get to go in areas of hospitals that say no access ambulance only and park on double yellows If needed

Probably stating the obvious but I would imagine you have to be fairly fit for this job ?

Wellll you'd think

But a couple drivers here are about 22 stone themselves

General rule of thumb. Be able to lift your own weight. Tho. I don't think they can.

Mainly strength and correct technique gets you through, but ideally be fairly fit

In the UK when I see a big silver vehicle with 'Private Ambulance' on it, is it always there to pick up a deceased person?

Always, silver probably means co op, check for Their little blue logo. But it will be for th deceased, probably off to collect or having just collected

My only question is why? What would drive someone to decide to make that choice for an occupation.

It was by chance I worked on the office doing the prepaid plans

And then I went out with a driver to cover and I loved it