Crematorium Technician here

[CodLiverOil556]

I see lots of threads about cremations and Crematoria. I'm currently a crem tech so please ask me questions and I will endeavor to answer them.

@DamsonGin yes we get support but we mostly support each other. My heat proof suit is more like a dust coat with very thick gloves and a face mask. I want to be scattered anywhere my children deem suitable.

We all tend to scatter ashes and we say a few words as we do it.

Me too mrjoepike I took a small amount of my late DH's ashes out to Porto with his sons and step daughter and we put them in the Douro outside his favourite restaurant. The remaining ashes were scattered up on the White Horse at Uffington where, ten years earlier, we had a marriage blessing.

Thank you.

Do you know who you are cremating, like say if they're famous, or the opposite say someone from prison?

fourwe also sang his fav ac/dc(let there be rock) song as the boat went back to the dock followed by hundreds of crows.his part of his name was crow.he was a musician and avide semi pro fisherman.
kermit the pyres are done on a bald mountaintop here in colorado.the one i was at in australia was on a huge flat in the outback.

How do the ashes get from inside the cremator into the container relatives receive them in? So I understand you rake out the bones, but the other ashes that have been produced, from the coffin and skin and organs and so on - how do they get from inside the cremator?

What will my mum’s ashes look like? I’ve had them in the container we received them in for 5 years now, I haven’t been able to decide what to do with them. I now know what I want to do with them, but cannot bring myself to open the container - I’m not really sure what to expect! I know that sounds really stupid! Will it just look like cigarette ash?

Thank you for the thread @kermit , and for the respect you show the deceased. I’ve found it very reassuring. The funeral director who we worked with for my mum was an actual angel I’m convinced, he did such an incredible job and brought both comfort and dignity to the whole thing. I wasn’t in the best state to appreciate him at the time, and I certainly didn’t think about the other people involved in the process, so I want to say thank you to you now, and to everyone who works in such a very special field.

Thanks @ILoveKermit that explains why the ashes are only of one person and not of the person cremated just before as well.

Have you ever done cremations of parts of bodies?
There is a documentary about an autopsy of an obese person on BBC iPlayer and the cadaver (struggling with the "correct" words here) had one arm removed which was return to the family for cremation. Also, I wonder how much ashes would come from just an arm?

@spaghetti - we had to leave my mum at the hospital for post mortem, leaving her there felt like the wrongest, most alien thing ever. When I visited the chapel of rest I held her hand, kissed her, I feel like I could have climbed in that bloody coffin with her. I just wanted the funeral and cremation over with (everything took three times as long as it was Christmas and there was a backlog) because, even though I knew it wasn’t really her, leaving her body all alone just felt awful. I’d rather have had it at home to be honest, not something I ever imagined myself feeling!

of course you meant coffin nails

Wow that would have been a very bad first day on the job for me:

Kermit: ‘ok OyO, I’ll leave you to extract the nails’.
Me: ‘oh, erm, sure.’

Also, is it a well paid job? I feel it ought to be.

@OyO

I'm trying not to laugh OyO, but it's impossible not to :p

Thank you, Kermit, for explaining a lot that I'd always wondered.

@TheDayDreamBeliever we have to check the nameplate but to be honest I don't really take any notice of the name as in whether they are famous or otherwise. I've not cremated anyone famous

With regard to the shape of the coffin and its resident, I believe people don't always straighten up in death. Someone with a pronounced stoop would need a deeper coffin than you might expect.

@AliasGrape there are only bones left everything is burnt to nothing Microscopic Carbon particles into the atmosphere.

Your mums ashes will probably look a bit like very fine gravel certainly not cigarette ashes

@olderthanyouthink yes we have a separate form for body parts and I've cremated part of a brain before now. Not much ash comes from them as you can imagine but whatever is left is dealt with exactly the same as a full cremation.

@AliasGrape not as well paid as you would think about £18k a year

Fascinating thread!

So, are the bones recognisable when they come out? Or is it just a jumble of fragments?

What's a cremulator? I imagine a huge coffee grinder.

@ILoveKermit It should be more

Hi!

Fascinating thread! I’m a celebrant (recently qualified) I was fortune enough to get a behind the scenes tour & found it all quite amazing.

I had a look in the spy hole, strange but so interesting to watch. Although I have been called strange for looking!

I watched a video on YouTube called Do I Get The Right Ashes? It was great to see what happens before I went for my tour.

Everyone in the funeral industry are so kind and respectful. I’m glad I know so much more about it all now, I know what to expect with my own family. X

@CointreauVersial some bits are recognisable such as vertebrae and femurs. The cremulator is a machine I suppose like a coffee grinder but spins very quick.

Bit morbid, but this thread made me wonder what exactly is pulled out of the thingy, as several people have asked if it's like a proper skeleton, so I went on youtube, and my curiosity is now satisfied.

What do body parts get cremated in? A cardboard box? Surely there's not a special wooden box for arms/legs/brains etc

So everything except the bones (and some metals )is burned off to oblivion then?

And you take the bones and they are then ground down to to something like a coarse sand?

I've only attended one cremation (burial is the usual option in Ireland) and it was a lovely service, and I think it's the way I'd like to go.

I once went on a tour round the local crematorium, it was fascinating! Like you Kermit all the staff were so respectful. I was surprised about all strict protocols, but found it reassuring. Would highly recommend if anyone gets the opportunity!