Life and Death on the Farm: My Experience at the Body Farm and Why It Wasn't Meant to Be
I have always found myself intrigued by the morbid and the weird. What some people would find disgusting, I would find fascinating. I would happily sit down and chow on some Spaghetti Bolognese while watching dissections on television. I mean, the spilled-out intestines were pretty reminiscent of the spaghetti that I was twirling around on my fork.
My “ick” factor was once tested when I went to the Body Farm.
For a bit of context, I did my undergraduate course at Keele University, studying Human Biology and Forensic Science. In the summer before my last year, all Forensic students were offered a trip to Knoxville, Tennessee, to learn Forensic Anthropology from the best.
Now, as someone who was a big fan of the TV programme 'Bones,' I lept at the chance for this opportunity. I squirreled away as much money from my student loan as I could, to stretch it across this 10-day excursion.
A few weeks after the final exams had finished, we were whisked away to the very hot Tennessee. It was my first experience in America. Once we had a few days to get over the jetlag and the intense heat, we were transported underneath the Knoxville football ground. Have you ever watched 'The Blind Side' where they put off the main character from going to Tennessee because there were bodies under the stadium? Well, they are not wrong. It was the Anthropology department. And inside, there were many boxes filled with carefully catalogued bones. The logging is important because, as they told us, in case of a disaster, the fire department needs to know how many bones were already... well, bones.
This windowless room was where we spent a whole week, learning how to tell the difference between the sex, age, and race of the bones that were splayed on the table before us. The hosts were wonderful, and we were even able to meet Dr. Bill Bass himself, the Founder of the Body Farm.
The Body Farm is a facility that examines the decomposition rates of human bodies in outdoor elements. The research conducted at this facility can help forensic teams determine the time of death and other useful information in criminal cases.
On the very last day of our trip (around 8 hours before our flight), our group was taken to the Body Farm to see exactly what they did. There was a state-of-the-art building where they explained the process of donations and how they collect and return the bones to the family. Often, people decide to donate their bodies to the farm when they are unable or don't want to do organ donations but still want to contribute something to the world of science.
The people who look after the bodies are very respectful in how they conduct themselves. However, they made sure to warn us that when cleaning the bones in a pressure cooker instrument, if they put their faces into the steam, they can smell the bones for many days later as it sinks into their pores.
Then, when it was time to go into the facility, we drove up to these 12-foot-high metal gates with barbed wires on top and fencing all around. It seemed like a car park from the outside, but as soon as we stepped inside, it was surprisingly green. It was a heavily wooded area with lots of green ferns and long grasses. But interspersed among these were plots with human bodies located in them. The bodies were in different directions, mostly unclothed, and in various stages of decomposition. But what was most noticeable was the smell. That smell was something you would never forget, a slightly sweet rotting stench. At that point, we wished we had taken the advice of past people and liberally spread Vicks under our nostrils. But alas, it was not the case in this instance.
We moved around gently, almost tiptoeing, trying to be as respectful as possible to the dead that was lying around. As the research technicians recounted different past and present experiments that were currently being conducted, it was a fascinating experience. But as I looked at the technicians who worked there and some of my fellow students, I realized something. They were all very passionate about this, almost manic in their excitement for the discoveries they could see in front of them.
And me? Well, I did find it extremely fascinating. However, I did not have the same passion that I saw around me. And I realized... to be part of this world, this very fabric of existence, I had to share this enthusiasm, and I was just... meh. And so, with one fatal swoop of one day, my teenage dream of becoming a Forensic Anthropologist like Temperance Brennan from 'Bones' was dashed. I had to rapidly look inward and ask myself what I was actually interested in.