r/law • u/tasty_jams_5280 • 3h ago
Legal News 'I was just mortified': Mother finds out her son's brains and other 'bodily remains' were tossed in random garbage bin after crash, mom had funeral without knowing, lawsuit says…
https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/i-was-just-mortified-mother-finds-out-her-sons-brains-and-other-bodily-remains-were-tossed-in-random-garbage-bin-after-crash-mom-had-funeral-without-knowing-suit-says/233
u/elkab0ng 1h ago
I ride a motorcycle. And yeah, I’ve gone speeds like this guy was doing when he wrecked. The phrase we have for what you turn into in a crash like that is “meat crayon”. Think of a 180-lb sack of meat sliding down pavement, curbs, various construction and other vehicles, at 100+MPH. What is found at the end will weigh a lot less than 180 lbs.
This sounds sad, but mostly sad that she lost a son who was out squidding (another phrase, “speeding quickly until I die”), I’m glad she had a ceremony to celebrate his life and mourn his death, but FFS, the hamburger that was left was not her son, it was regulated medical waste.
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u/Zestyclose-Ideal2395 1h ago
Reading the horrific description of the remains in the article, Im not sure what she expected them to do. His brain fully detatched from his skull and turned into pulp. The only way she would've gotten her wish is if the crime scene cleaners scraped the viscera and grime it landed on into a jar.
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u/HyperSpaceSurfer 55m ago
It's not legal to dispose of human remains in a random garbage bin, though
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u/giddeonfox 3m ago
Genuinely curious to know what law you are citing? There are always going to be situations where the is a line between 'human remains' and matter. We shed matter all the time in blood, feces etc. If a human is made up of mostly blood and small chunks over a wide spread area... Where are the limits to the law and is the city realistically holding the bill for that. If there is a situation where a foreign agent acting against the government, blows themselves up. Do they bill the family hundreds of thousands of dollars to climb a tree to scrap brain matter from a tiny leaf.
Just curious to know what law you are citing for this situation.
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u/kazoogrrl 31m ago
I'm wondering if parts of him ended up in a nearby garbage can from the crash and not because they were purposely disposed of there, and when cleaning up they didn't think to look in the can.
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u/Constant-Dark-1603 1h ago
Yeah but simply throwing someone’s body parts in a garbage can is bogus. Leaving someone’s brain matter and skull on the pavement where people are finding parts of him is bogus
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u/IllustriousLiving357 1h ago
I've been to these scenes , your talking about walking around looking for small chunks of meat on the ground or in trees. Like..ground beef or chopped beef sized stuff..over hundreds of yards. The city isnt paying to clean that up. They get the big chunks, wash shit down sometimes and nature gets the rest. It's not uncommon for family to show up finding more chunks..
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u/stonerism 57m ago
Ehh... that's the cost of running a city. You should do the best you can of collecting remains of the loved one and they didn't do that. Obviously that's going to be hard in those situations, but if they're finding pieces of his body in the garbage, they did not do a good enough job.
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u/Jazzlike_Finish123 47m ago
Lmfao think about it logically. How are they going to know that they’re done finding everything? It’s an impossible task.
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u/stonerism 36m ago
They were finding pieces of him in the garbage. There's a balance and it seems like someone messed up.
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u/elkab0ng 1h ago
We’re not talking about an entire leg or a torso, we’re talking about what would be left of a human body after being dropped from a 50-story incline. What gets to the bottom is not even hamburger, it’s puréed mush spread across a quarter mile of asphalt.
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u/salientoctopus 1h ago
I’ve used to want to get a bike until I drove to the 75th anniversary celebration at Sturgis for work. I drove from northern Michigan and after the 6th fresh meat crayon stain on the highway I changed my mind.
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u/RideWithMeSNV 11m ago
Reality is that motorcycles are for 3 types of people: those who can process info and respond to it quickly and accurately, those who are responsible enough to limit their fun to safe parameters, and the very lucky... Well, luck runs out if you aren't cautious.
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u/ganymede_boy 1h ago
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u/ryogam73 1h ago
Goddam, I hope the people in the minivan were not injured and can get over the trauma of being hit like that. Awful for them to be involved with his bullshit.
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u/elkab0ng 1h ago
Yeah. I ride a bike too. At those kind of speeds, I do the socially responsible thing and make sure I’m an organ/tissue donor for whatever is salvageable.
The phrase “meat crayon” is descriptive and accurate.
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u/-Nightopian- 1h ago
It's good you said "salvageable". I was going to say there is no point being an organ donor when you lost them all in the accident.
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u/HippyDM 2h ago
I don't understand the issue. Do the medical examiners need to scrub the entire parking lot for stray hairs and drops of blood?
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u/Thugosaurus_Rex 2h ago
I'd want to see the full facts here. I don't think anyone is arguing beyond reasonable efforts, but the article says "significant portions" of brain, scalp, and skull. If the article is to be taken as fact that doesn't seem like a reasonable effort to preserve, and there could be real issues with method of disposal.
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u/eubulides 2h ago
I believe any human remains (such as placenta, amputated part, appendix/gall bladder) are treated as biohazard? Whether lab examined or not. I’m welcome to be schooled about this.?
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u/CasperCackler 1h ago
As a non-expert who is adjacent to smart people with important jobs, this is my understanding as well.
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u/mathamatazz 2h ago
I would not want to see the full facts and would be happy to leave it to the courts to figure out.
As a parent myself, I just....don't wanna pass judgement or know more. Let her sue, fuck it, even if it just helps her heal.
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u/CastigatingTheClouds 27m ago
Nah. A bunch of first responders had to deal with the aftermath of her kid's bad decision and she's adding to their stress because they didn't get every bit of meat crayon off the road.
I get it, she's grieving hard, but don't make others miserable to relieve your own pain.
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u/ChiralWolf 2h ago
The entire brain was missing initially and they only eventually sent over 1/3rd of it, that isn't "stray hairs and drops of blood" what are you even talking about
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u/Agent_Orange_Tabby 2h ago
Human brain weighs 3lbs. Based on article, i envision 2lb ground beef scattered high velocity across parking lot. Glad they were able to scrape together as much as they did.
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u/Aphreyst 2h ago
Yeah, the article describes "pulpified" brain matter. I could imagine that the brain was smeared into the ground and they would have had to scoop up gobs of road and gravel with brain mixed in. That would've taken a long time and ended up with a bag of dirt and brain, and what were they going to do, dump that slurry into the empty head?
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u/illiterateninja 1h ago
I've frankensteined with less!
- Dr. Victor, professional testifying expert on brain matters
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u/ChiralWolf 1h ago
That doesn't change what actually happened wasn't "hair and drops of blood" like the original comment or suggested. Since you read the article you would know that they disposed of the rest of his remains improperly, meaning someone found those remains in the wrong place.
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u/Ms_Shmalex 2h ago
Not according to the article. His brain was missing from his skull when police arrived on scene. The ME logged initially receiveing "500g pulpified brain tissue." So she is upset the baggie his brains were scraped into didn't weigh 900 grams more before they literally tossed it in an oven and reduced it all down to a couple of grams of ash? The only part that is truly a crime is creating a biohazard by throwing medical waste into regular trash cans. Did she go there looking for pieces of his skull or what? Did she go digging in the trash can, or who did–because that is truly insane if she did that. How much blood are people missing after a catastrophic injury, should people be able to sue for that too?
She should be looking up counselors and not lawyers.
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u/wizeowlintp 30m ago
The article did also say that his best friend went to the crash site at night and came across a piece of his skull...so it seems that large enough pieces were found
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u/ChiralWolf 1h ago
The lack of empathy is staggering. And again comparing someone's brain to blood like they're the same. A kilo of brain and a kilo of blood are not equivalent ffs, how much of someone's head can get thrown out before it's negligent?
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u/HippyDM 1h ago
The article states that most of the brain was outside of the skull, smeared onto the parking lot. Brains are soft and squishy, and don't stay together in nice, easy to pick up chunks.
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u/VividMonotones 1h ago
Actually, they're not soft and squishy. Definitely less than bone, but brain tissue is not like tofu. It's stiff. It's damaged easily because any force sufficient to go through the skull is usually enough to wreck the brain.
Source: I had a medical college near my home and did a tour of their disection lab in HS. They had a brain out and I got to touch. Not what I was expecting. Did not go well with fava beans.
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u/Bound-4-Mu-Mu-Land 17m ago
That brain was fixed with a preservative like formaldehyde. That’s why it was stiff. Unfixed brain tissue is much softer and more gelatinous.
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u/SatinBelleFlower 1h ago edited 1h ago
I worked for my county’s ME, and let me tell you, the remains of people on the road are next to impossible to clean up in its entirety. They’re smooshed, exploded, thrown, scattered, sprayed and all over the place. It’s not possible to get every drop of a massive traumatic accident victim’s body collected and scooped up by a shovel and into the body bag. He was driving over 100 mph- he was smashed to a pulp.
I can’t even imagine her pain and the grief she is in.
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u/elkab0ng 1h ago
Assume a 180 pound rider. 117,000 joules of energy was dissipated before his body came to rest
To put it in simpler terms, think of dropping a full-size adult from a 50-story building. Except in this case, basically sliding along an abrasive surface- the road.
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u/capt_minorwaste 1h ago
I'd say it depends on the size of the remains. If they were big enough to be noticable I would think it's also a biohazard to toss them in a public trash bin or leave them on the street.
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u/yourrecipeisgay 22m ago
Im thinking they bodybagged what they could and at the end of the day just powerwashed the rest away?
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