# Frozen Body



## courtneyv (Feb 15, 2012)

How long would it take a body in a chestfreezer to decompose? Or would it? Five months after death, I have a character, who's getting something from the freezer, notice the eye first. Is this possible? And would the caucasian body be gray? I don't put the color, but just in case I need to know.


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## Bloggsworth (Feb 15, 2012)

A body in a deep-freeze would be relatively OK for years, it might have freezer burns. I have eaten food that's been 2 years in a freezer, so I see no problem...


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## Ditch (Feb 15, 2012)

Without oxygen a Caucasian body quickly turns a grey/blue.


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## Terry D (Feb 15, 2012)

After five months the body would still be fairly pristine save for the color Ditch mentioned.  There may be some shrinkage due to dehydration if the corpse isn't wrapped in plastic, but the eye would still be there -- fogged and frosty, but there.


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## Bloggsworth (Feb 15, 2012)

What's with this blue/grey thing - My pork chops are still pink after a year in the freezer; they might go blue/grey if unfrozen and left to decompose.


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## Ditch (Feb 15, 2012)

Cyanosis is the medical term for a bluish color of the skin and the mucous membranes due to an insufficient level of oxygen in the blood. This can happen while a person is still alive but in pretty severe respiratory distress. Once breathing stops, the hemoglobin gives up it's oxygen and the red goes away. Just as there is a difference between dark venous blood and bright red arterial blood, even venous blood still has some oxygen, once that is gone, you do turn a nice shade of blue/grey.​


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## courtneyv (Feb 15, 2012)

Thanks! You guys are awesome.


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## SeverinR (Feb 24, 2012)

Bloggsworth said:


> What's with this blue/grey thing - My pork chops are still pink after a year in the freezer; they might go blue/grey if unfrozen and left to decompose.


Is this preservatives or coloring in meat? Because Ditch is right, humans turn blue/gray when hypoxic.
But I think deer meat was still pink when we were given it. Although "old meat" turns the same color, hmmm.

I should add, Freezer Fred would freeze dry, but would not decompose.


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## Ditch (Feb 24, 2012)

Check any package of bacon, hotdogs, or cold cuts and chances are you’ll find nitrites listed among the ingredients.
Although nitrites have caused cancer in laboratory animals and may well do the same in people they are among the oldest and most common food preservatives and serve a variety of functions.
*


Red Meat*

Fresh meat in the supermarket is red because of the pigment called “myoglobin,” which stores oxygen in muscle cells. But myoglobin is only red when it is bonded to oxygen molecules.
In live animals, the blood carries oxygen to the myoglobin; in freshly cut meat the oxygen comes directly from the air. But the red color of freshly cut meat is temporary since aging, cooking, and bacteria, all separate the oxygen from the myoglobin, turning the meat a brownish-gray color.

*What Nitrites Do*

Nitrites keep meat red by bonding to the myoglobin and acting as a substitute for the oxygen.Oxygen and sodium nitrate both turn myoglobin red, but nitrate attaches with a more stable bond and so the color lasts longer.
Although for several hundred years, nitrites and nitrates have been used to preserve the color of meat, more recent evidence shows that these chemicals also inhibit the growth of bacteria, including the bacteria that cause the deadly disease, botulism.

Why Meat Stays Red: Myoglobin And Nitrites | A Moment of Science - Indiana Public Media


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## Ditch (Feb 24, 2012)

As a paramedic, I've seen a lot of people in respiratory distress. Caucasians lips turn blue, on a person of black descent, you raise the lips and look at the gums for this discoloration.


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## CFFTB (Feb 24, 2012)

I just remember in Goodfellas when one of the guys Robert DeNiro whacked was found in a meat-freezer truck, & it took 3 days to thaw his body out for autopsy. Being this was based on a true story, this may be entirely plausible, but Ditch seems to know what he's talking about so I'd go with whatever he says.


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## Ditch (Feb 24, 2012)

I was watching a documentary on Boa Constrictors overpopulating the Florida Everglades. One large snake had died of smoke inhalation in a building fire and had been frozen for two years I think. After being thawed, it was determined that the intestines would have degraded to a point that dissection would not be a good thing, so they used a smaller snake. Some decomposition must still occur at the cellular level, but a human body should preserve nicely, still it would be discolored, even if frozen alive. The blood vessels in contact with extreme cold constrict to shunt the blood away from the extremities to the core, the heart and brain. You see this when you are in really cold weather as your lips or fingernails turn blue.

The same thing happens when you scuba dive, the sudden immersion in cold water shunts the blood to the core and... you suddenly have to pee.


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## theorphan (Feb 25, 2012)

Bloggsworth said:


> What's with this blue/grey thing - My pork chops are still pink after a year in the freezer; they might go blue/grey if unfrozen and left to decompose.



Were these store bought pork chops?


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