I had a nurse at work who grew up in Cleveland tell me they found a body hanging in a patch of woods. Suicide probably. What went into unbelievable was she said the body had hung so long before it was found that it had stretched to almost 10 feet.

How the hell could that happen? Urban legend or something?

I’ve seen bodies in cars basically melt / decompose into the seats during hot weather. One turned black on a sofa (smelled that one from the parking lot). Never had one stretch. I would guess the spine severed and the skin slowly stretched. Just a guess my .02.

A body will stretch until the head comes off.

Didn't happen.

This need to be forwarded to the writers of The Walking Dead.

That's what I figured. The neck muscles and ligaments decompose until they can no longer hold the weight. I'm sure the death did happen, but people seem to need to embellish such things.

It's possible that the tendons, etc stretched and/or broke as they aged. As the joints came apart, the body would have stretched. I suppose it could happen but 10' sounds like a 'stretch'.

As a physician....umm, no...

I wouldn't believe 10 feet, but my Dad found a suicide one time that had been hanging for a month. Everything was still attached. The guy was 5'10 in life, and over 7 feet when they cut him down.

We better start hangin' those deer in taller trees...

At the rate we're going, we're gonna need a 30 footer.

I'm a retired funeral director. In my early years, I was called in one evening to embalm, which was a common occurrence. However, upon arrival, I found the young man's body to be frozen solid, and his neck maybe three times the length a normal person's would be.

He had hung himself in a shed out back, and no one had found him. They presumed it took place in January, it was early March when he was found. I went home, as there was nothing that could be done until he thawed. I think they reimbursed my time and gas.

10 feet? Maybe he was just "well hung".

Have to size em down to fit in standard coffins

Haha


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Well, how tall was he to start with?

Nope.....just nope.

Seen more hanging bodies than any one person should. Typically any added height/length is confined to the neck, and even then only until decomp makes the neck to weak to support the the weight....or until animals get involved.

I have heard the stories before never seen one.

Salt water and crabs work wonders on a bloated floating body.

Well, a guy had a heart attack in a tub at Bagby Hot Springs in the Oregon Cascades with the 140ish water running in....



















Paramedics called him Stew.

To get the entire experience, on has to smell it as well.

Nope, see and gag.

Did he play basketball?

That's a stretch of the imagination....

You mean you don't hang a deer high and hang free weights laying around the basement from it's neck and let it "age" before showing it off??

I was a paramedic for 14 years. I have seen more dead bodies than I care to remember, in fact, I am still trying to forget most of them.
We had a guy went missing in the river swamps, they found him 6 months later, snagged up on a tree in the river, most of the flesh gone a little hair on the skull, ribs showing very little flesh, still had blue jeans on, had one tennis shoe on, the other foot was a skeleton.

Lots of fun putting that in a body bag, yes sir.

Anyway I have seen it all, and whatever I haven't seen I don't want to see, but no, a body cannot stretch 10 feet.

I'd probably go euro mount on that one.

I've bagged up several bodies. Or body parts. 10' might be an exaggeration, but maybe not. I've seen one that hanged himself that we found several weeks later. What we found was a lot longer than normal. Didn't take time to measure the body

It is not uncommon for men to get a huge boner while being hanged and before death. That is true, look it up.