Medical Professionals Describe Their Weirdest Autopsy Results

Not everyone is cut out to perform autopsies.

In addition to all the necessary training and certifications, it also takes considerable willpower.

After all, you're dealing almost exclusively with dead bodies here.

If the job is anything but glamorous, someone has to do it.

Then too, sometimes they make discoveries that truly defy description.

Redditor atro_bella was curious to learn about the wildest discoveries made by anyone who'd ever performed an autopsy, leading them to ask:

"People who perform autopsies, what was the weirdest/most unique anomaly you’ve found?"

Patience Is A Virtue

"In a previous career I was a US army CID agent, and every death investigation that required an autopsy we had to send an agent to photograph and observe for the case file."

"One guy who had been stabbed through the heart with a steak knife by his wife was in peak physical shape, but when the pathologist pulled his brain out he said 'look at this'."

"I have no biology training, but the golf ball sized tumor on his brainstem was obvious even to me."

"Doctor said he had maybe 90 days to live at the time of his death."

"The wife went to prison for murder, and all she had to do was wait a few months and she'd have been a hero Army widow."- Underwater_Karma

Two For The Price Of One... Sort Of...

"I performed autopsies for almost a decade."

"The most unique thing I saw was uterine didelphys with a septate vagina."

"Basically, the vagina split in two and went to two separate cervixes and two separate uterine cavities."

"The two parts of the uterus fused into one heart-shaped body."

"I only saw that once."- yeahprobablydrunk

Talk About Pure Dumb Luck!

"Performing an autopsy on an elderly patient with cardiac valve disease and found a 3 cm white plastic disc lodged in the ostium of one of the renal arteries."

"It was identical to the disc of the patient's tilting valve type mechanical aortic valve which was in place, intact, and functioning normally."

"We had no explanation for why an extra valve disc was present far downstream from the heart."

"An in depth review of the patient's surgical history revealed that many years prior, during the installation of the patient's aortic valve, the cage for the valve broke while being installed and the disc had flown into the aorta and couldn't be retrieved."

"The surgeon immediately removed the broken cage, replaced the entire apparatus with another replacement valve and completed the surgery."

"We found no evidence that there was any subsequent investigation to determine the whereabouts of the lost valve component."

"So for years (apparently unknown to most of his caretakers and even potentially to the patient) the patient had a cardiac valve disc lodged in his renal artery ostium, in such a way that it was non-obstructing and stable, and it was discovered as an incidental finding at the patient's autopsy."- vonGekko

Astonishingly Tragic

"I did an autopsy of a young kid around 10 yrs old who had hydrocephalus and was altho quadriplegic yet retained some of his normal functions."

"Like talking and understanding, albeit minimally."

"When I opened his skull, there was no brain."

"I was shocked."

"This was my first time witnessing something like this but there was approx 1.5L of fluid and just an empty skull."

"The brain was so severely atrophied it was tinier than a golf ball."

"Amazing how he survived till 10!"- Danger-Doctor-419

As The Saying Goes... Size Doesn't Matter...

"An old woman with an incredibly thick skull all the way around."

"Her brain was much much smaller than it should have been but according to her family she was fully functional and displayed no deficits of any kind."

"She actually ran her own cheese making company and died from a carbon monoxide leak."

"Strangest case I ever saw!"- User5711

All It Takes Is One Little Push...

"I worked with a guy who had a lot of emotional baggage."

"When he was a teen, he and his younger brother were rough housing, and he pushed his younger brother against a wall."

"He said his brother stood there for a moment saying he didn't feel right, then dropped dead."

"In the autopsy the coroner discovered the younger brother's brainstem had been 'dangling by a thread', and any bump to the head could have detached it."

"That he made it through the toddler years of learning to walk was a miracle."

"Crazy story, and I felt bad for the guy because he still blamed himself for what was truly just a freak accident."- PumpkinGlass1393

Upon Reflection...

"Situs Inversus."

"Basically all the organs were in mirrored anatomical positions from where they should normally be."

"So so cool."- PaperClipehz

Bionic Woman!

"Not a regular autopsy performer, but I do a lot with forensic archaeology (mostly natural mummies now) and had to take an A&P class that involved cadaver dissection."

"Female patient died at 102 of natural causes."

"We found that the joint of her left elbow was replaced with something that legitimately looked like a car part."

"It turns out she’d lived somewhere in Soviet Eastern Europe and had the procedure done some time in the 1960s, and it looked like that replacement was done with whatever they had available."

"It was absolutely incredible."- amycusfinch

Everyone Wants A Backup...

"An accessory spleen just hanging out attached to the intestines."- mamallama2020

Archival Usage

"As part of high school anatomy we went on a field trip to a local college to work with the bodies donated to science."

"They had a sign 'If you can’t find it they don’t have one'."

"A nearby body was missing some part of their digestive track (I forget what. Appendix?)."

"They searched up and down."

"Just wasn’t there."

"No scar indicating removal either."

"Another body was a dead biker."

"Heavy drinker."

"His body adjusted though."

"His liver was seriously twice the size of anyone else’s there (or more) stretching all the way across his torso."

"That liver was a beast."- drakethrice

Sad, But Fascinating

"Veterinarian."

"I had a calf that died out in the field at about 14 days after a couple of hours of respiratory distress that did not respond to antibiotics."

"We were expecting it to be pneumonia, which is fairly common in calves."

"He had a double outflow right ventricle, and just this little flap of the nonfunctional left ventricle, so the blood entered the right atrium, went to the RV, out to the lungs, and back to the left atrium, where it entered the RV through a common AV valve."

"The blood also left the right ventricle through the aorta, so both pulmonary artery and aorta came off the right ventricle."

"There was significant dilation of the pulmonary artery from pulmonary hypertension and he developed congestive heart failure."

"Pretty neat, a bit sad, and very unexpected."

"Really cool to see a single ventricle heart in a mammal, almost like a lizard, and wild that he made it to 14 days like that."- daabilge

A Warning From The Future...

"I've never performed an autopsy, but my friends (they were 3 siblings) growing up had a pathologist for a father."

"I was over their house so much, that I became a fixture in the family/included in most of their adventures."

"Me and the oldest son got a hold of some liquor one night and got wasted."

"My father is an alcoholic, and it gave me a bad home life/probably was a significant factor as to why I basically moved in with them."

"We were caught."

"I was nervous and sad, expecting them to deem me a bad influence, and abandon me, a cycle I was familiar with."

"Their parents beckoned me into the dining room, wanting a private talk."

"I braced for the worst, but Instead ,they sat me down, told me they loved me, and that I had to be careful with alcohol due to addiction having genetic components."

"We talked a long time, and when it was over, they informed Me I wasn't off the hook yet."

"Apparently they had a surprise for me and their son, which would blow my mind."

"The next morning we were woken, and told to get dressed and get in the car with my friends dad (the pathologist)."

"He drove us to his work, where he showed us a cadaver and the liver of a middle-aged man who died of cirrhosis."

"It burned in my brain, and I never forgot it."

"It had such an impact on me to see how alcohol destroys the body."

"While I wish I could say I escaped alcoholism, I would go on to have my own struggles."

"But they probably would have been a lot worse if it weren't for this experience!"- Pitiful_Deer4909

Added And Missing Links...

"A horseshoe kidney, both kidneys were fused at the lower ends."

"Another person had a missing lung lobe, so two lobes on each side, instead of two and three (without having had any surgery)."- notonthenightshift

Part Of Their Education...

"In Medical School I attended one Autopsy where the Patient had a fistula (connection) between his Aortic artery and his Esophagus."

"He bled to death that way."

"Scary to think about that."- TyrosinLennyster

We have to be grateful to coroners and medical examiners, without whom so many people would have so many unanswered questions.

What we tend to overlook, however, is that they are often left with even more unanswered questions after finishing their examinations...